


Season Four

by blazingskies2970



Series: Shameless Rewrite: Partner, Lover, Family [5]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Baby Shmoop, Bottom Mickey Milkovich, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Dancer Ian Gallagher, Domestic Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Drug Use, F/M, Ian Gallagher Loves Mickey Milkovich, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Jealous Mickey Milkovich, Kid Fic, M/M, Mickey Milkovich Loves Ian Gallagher, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pimp Mickey Milkovich, Post Mpreg, Shameless (US) Season Four, Terry Milkovich Being an Asshole, Top Ian Gallagher, lol it's canon so, roughly follows canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:21:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29377014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazingskies2970/pseuds/blazingskies2970
Summary: Fiona begins to head into a downward spiral, Lip struggles to adjust to life at college, Veronica is pregnant with triplets, Debbie begins pining after an older man, Frank's liver is failing, and both Mickey and Ian can't stand the distance while Ian is in the army.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher & Mandy Milkovich, Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Kev Ball/Veronica Fisher, Mandy Milkovich & Mickey Milkovich
Series: Shameless Rewrite: Partner, Lover, Family [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978276
Comments: 139
Kudos: 124





	1. Simple Pleasures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, how’s Ian?” Kev asks when he’s settled down.  
> Mickey shifts Aileen on his lap. “Fine since the last time you asked,” he snaps back.  
> He doesn't like it when people ask him about Ian. He doesn't want to talk about him to anyone, and whenever people ask and he gives a short, clipped answer, they always look disappointed.  
> 4.01

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back again. Will I ever stop? Probably not.  
> Expectations for this season: It's going to be a lot darker, much like how it is in canon, with Fiona's drug problems and Frank's impending death. But that doesn't mean that there won't be fluffy moments with Aileen, though!  
> I'm also staying strictly to Ian and Mickey's POVs, as I've finished telling the stories of Fiona/Jimmysteve and Lip/Mandy. I'll also try to stick to a regular posting schedule of every 2-3 days.

The first thing Mickey does when he wakes up is roll over onto his stomach, scooch up to the headboard of his bed, grab the marker he’s managed to balance there, and cross off the day before on the calendar he stole from the mall. 

Today it’s _January 21,_ which means that it’s January 22, making it 3 weeks and 6 days since Ian’s been away. Tomorrow, it’s a full month. 

Mickey hates it.

Ian writes, and oh boy, does he write. And he calls, every Sunday and Wednesday, but it’s still not enough. Mickey needs Ian like he needs oxygen. 

The first week had been the worst. He had cried himself to sleep each night, hugging Ian’s pillow against his chest, his body shaking with his silent sobs, as he doesn’t want to risk anyone else overhearing. Aileen had cried too, but less than him, because she doesn't really _get_ it yet. One of her parents is gone, sure, but at least she still has her daddy. Mickey doesn’t have anyone. Ian _is_ his everyone. 

He studies the photo Mandy took of Ian every day. He taped it to his wall the morning after Ian left on the bus, and that’s the second thing he does after checking off another day and rolling out of bed. He stares at his boyfriend’s face and imagines he’s next to him, throwing an arm around his shoulder, laughing, with his head tipped back and his eyes crinkled shut, showing off his gorgeous white teeth. Then he shakes himself, steps away, and starts his day. 

Taking care of Aileen by himself is grueling. He never knew how he relied on Ian until he left. Now, it’s like trying to run a relay race all by himself. She’s already awake by the time he gets out of bed, gripping onto the railings of her crib and babbling for him. He puts a fresh diaper on her and changes her into her outfit for the day, then plays with her for a little bit while the rest of the house wakes up. Sometimes he takes her back to his bed and lays her on his torso because he just needs to be close to her, and other times he sets her on the floor and lays out toys around her while he gets dressed, which keeps her busy for about 3 minutes before she starts to whine for him.

Today is the former. He props his head up on pillows and drapes her across his chest, craning his neck to press a kiss to her forehead. She rests her chin on the slight swell on his pecs that have never really gone down. It’s been a while since he’s stopped breastfeeding (6 months to be exact), and he’s been doing fucking cardio, but he hasn’t been able to get rid of the thin layer of fat that seems determined to haunt him forever. His chest isn’t the only thing that pregnancy has permanently changed- his fucking _hips_ are bigger now, his pelvis having stretched to accommodate for a newborn’s head. And it’s not like bones and tendons can shrink back down, so he’s stuck with buying jeans with a larger waist size now. 

“Dada!” Aileen chirps then, her little hands stretching out to grab onto either side of Mickey’s face. She’s been putting two syllables together now, _Dada_ for Mickey, and _Mama_ for Mandy, which Mickey thinks is hilarious, because his sister is no way her mother. She still can’t quite seem to grasp _Papa_ , though, and still calls Ian _Pa_ over the phone. 

“Hi, sweetheart,” Mickey coos back at her, stroking a hand down her back. He misses Ian calling her _princess._ Her hair’s been getting longer, as Mickey’s stopped cutting it dutifully. The light brown strands go past her ears now, and Mandy’s been showing Mickey how to tie it up with elastics. It’s starting to get more curly, as well, and it makes Mickey’s heart clench because she _fucking looks so much like Ian._ But her eyes have stayed impossibly blue, and when he hoists her high up on his hip so she can stare at herself in the bathroom mirror, he swears their eyes are identical. She’s lost a lot of her baby fat, and Mickey mourns it. She no longer has chubby, awkward arms and legs, but is more leaner and looks more like a real person now. 

Mickey’s can’t believe Aileen’s officially 14 months now. She’s walking so much more smoothly, though her feet still slap the floor completely flat, and she often reaches out for Mickey’s hand to stable herself. She repeats “fuck” whenever somebody says it, which always causes a few laughs, and even said “ball” a week ago, but hasn’t repeated it since. Her molars are starting to come in, which means the teething toys are put back in the freezer and used whenever necessary. 

Aileen’s always been a really fucking happy baby, easy to calm down and rarely ever gets frustrated, so Mickey’s surprised when she starts crying more often and more easily. She breaks out in tears when her favorite ball rolls away from her, when Mandy tries to stop her from chewing on the TV remote, or when Mickey leaves her sight for more than 5 minutes. It breaks his heart because his daughter’s fucking crying because he isn’t there, and he knows he’s setting up bad habits when he rushes back to her at the first sound of her whimpering, but he needs her right now. 

Mickey wraps his arms around his daughter’s body, hugging her even closer to him and buries his nose in her hair. She still somehow smells like Ian. He wishes he could stay here forever, but she gets antsy quickly, and starts squirming. 

“Da,” she whines, and Mickey unwinds his arms, maneuvering her so she’s sitting on his stomach. 

“Whaddya say we take a trip to the bathroom, then breakfast, hm?”

He sets her down on the toilet seat while he brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face, then runs gel through his hair with his fingers, slicking it back. He let Svetlana cut it the other day, and she kept it long on the top, but short in the back and on the sides, which apparently is an undercut, because “Is style now.” Whatever. But it’s long in the front, and gets in his eyes if he doesn’t do anything with it. When he’s done, he grabs Aileen underneath her armpits and sets her on the floor, taking her hand. 

He helps her walk into the dining room, where Colin’s laying out his latest mail haul on the table, and sets her in her high chair, snapping the tray into place. Kenyatta and Mandy are making eggs in the kitchen when he grabs the baby cereal and a banana, taking out a plastic bowl for her from a set he had bought when she started eating real food, not liquified carrots and peas. Mickey’s thankful for it. That shit had smelled, bad. He pours some cereal into the bowl and tops it off with banana slices as Kenyatta grips Mandy’s waist when she’s stirring the eggs in a pan. She giggles, and Mickey wants to gouge his eyes out. 

He grabs Aileen’s sippy cup and fills it with milk before bringing it back over to her, setting her breakfast down in front of her. She forgoes the fork he placed in front of her, grabbing cereal and banana with her fingers and shoving them in her mouth. She’s been stubbornly refusing to use utensils, and Mickey doesn’t feel like he wants to get into that argument yet. So he just sits down next to Colin and starts going over the mail. 

A week ago, Linda had moved to California, paying Mickey one last time to help her load all her boxes up in the back of her new husband’s truck. She had sold the Kash N’ Grab, and then had just left. Like Ian. Mickey hates the fact that he misses the tiny, ugly store. Not to mention he doesn't have a job now. He’s been searching, but no place is willing to hire him if he has to bring his daughter into work every day. No way in hell is he leaving her with Colin as his brother does various drug and weapons runs. 

He frowns as he sifts through the mail. _Nothing_ in the pile is interesting. Someone knocks on the door, and Mandy goes to answer it. 

“What the fuck is this?” he asks Colin, slicing open yet another useless mailbox with his knife. 

“What?” Colin responds. Mickey gestures to the pile. 

“This is a bunch of bills, Chinq delivery menus, and press-on nail coupons. What mailboxes you rob, the Dearborn Projects’?” 

“Apartment complex over by Rush,” Colin says as Mickey scratches his scalp. His hair gel has been making his head kinda itchy lately as it dries. “Oh, there’s an ATM card.”

Mickey glances over at the paper in Colin’s hand. “Congragulations, it has no fucking pin number. What are you gonna do, rob the same mailboxes every day until they send the pin?”

“Fuck!” Aileen states. 

Svetlana shuffles into the room then, as if every step is a chore, a mug of coffee in one hand, the other one placed on her stomach. Mickey swears she’s more dramatic than he was when he was pregnant. 

“Hey, you,” he says to her, then grabs the pile of money near his right elbow that she leaves there every morning. It’s smaller than he would like. “This all you made yesterday?”

“I give you everything,” she replies. 

“220 bucks?” She nods. “How many Johnsons did you squash?” She sits down slowly. Jesus, she’s only 7 months, not like she’s about to pop the kid out. 

“17,” Svetlana says, and he does that math quickly in his head. 

“That’s like, 12 bucks a wank!”

She shrugs, and shouldn’t she be more worried? It’s not like they have all the money in the world. Mickey’s out of work, and Mandy and Svetlana make next to nothing. He just hopes they can hold out until Ian’s monthly payment from the army comes on Saturday. 

“Who was at the door?” he asks Mandy when she sits back down. Kenyatta shuffles over, placing down a steaming bowl of eggs. 

“Debbie Gallagher,” she responds. Her voice has gone soft lately, and she doesn't laugh out loud like she used to. Lip’s fucked her over, hard. If he ever steps foot in the Milkovich house, Mickey plans to bash his brains out. 

“What’d she want?” He scoops some eggs on his plate. 

“She wanted more news from Ian.”

“Well, it’s still the same as I told her on Sunday,” he replies, grabbing some eggs with his fingers and depositing it in Aileen’s bowl. She scoops it up and drops it in her mouth, chewing happily. 

“She said Lip’s doing good in college,” Mandy continues, trailing off. 

“Good for him,” Mickey responds and opens up another envelope. It’s just a bill, not very helpful. 

After breakfast, he straps Aileen in her stroller and drapes a blanket over her legs, because it’s January in Chicago and fucking cold as hell, then tries to find a place that’s hiring. There’s some sort of sketchy coffee shop, but the manager looks like he’s high and breathes with his mouth open and the place smells like piss, so he ditches it. 

He finds his way back to the Alibi, disheartened, and takes Aileen out of her stroller, setting her on his lap and orders a prairie oyster from Kev. 

“Did you know Svetlana’s makes $12 for every guy she jerks off?” he says absentmindedly when Kev hands him a little basket of eggs. He takes one and cracks it one-handedly into his beer. “I don’t even think that’s minimum wage, man. There’s gotta be like a law, or something, right?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure there is, but I don’t think it covers hand jobs,” Kev responds, hosting a heavy keg up. 

Mickey grabs the tabasco sauce and Aileen tries to get a hold of it, but he holds it out of her reach. “12 bucks a wank,” he says again. “That’s what she makes. On a fucking good day.”

“Jesus, really?” Tommy says next to him. “I’ve been paying 30 at that Thai place.”

“Yeah, but that’s ‘cause Sasha charges the costumes a shit ton more and then deducts all this stuff from the girls’ pay. Laundry, rent, janitorial, utilities. She charges them for the purell and mouthwash.” 

Svetlana had explained it all to him one day, and he had been horrified at what Sasha, her boss, had been doing. 

“They need a union to protect their rights,” some Native American guy says next to him. Aileen tries to bite the edge of the bar, and Mickey gently pries her mouth off it. He doesn’t want to know what kinda germs are on its surface. 

“Yeah, the international brotherhood of hand wankers and cock suckers,” Kev pipes up. “I’d love to see that sign on the side of a building downtown.”

“Why not?” the Native American, Dave, Mickey thinks, asks. 

“Hey, it’d make one hell of a picket sign though, right?” Kev shrugs. “Whores united for Handy-J justice!” he says, pumping his arms. 

“Wankers of the work, unite!” Tommy adds in, miming jerking off, then jerks his hand up like it’s a rocket. Kev laughs, and Mickey just sneers. It’s almost like they’re making a gay joke. _Almost._

“Hey, how’s Ian?” Kev asks when he’s settled down. Mickey shifts Aileen on his lap. 

“Fine since the last time you asked,” he snaps back. He doesn't like it when people ask him about Ian. He doesn't want to talk about him to anyone, and whenever people ask and he gives a short, clipped answer, they always look disappointed. As if they couldn’t write to Ian themselves. 

Kev opens his mouth to ask another question, but is cut off by the phone ringing. He answers it, and Mickey grabs a teether for Aileen from the stroller because she’s getting antsy. 

“What?” Tommy asks after Kev hangs up, because he has a dejected look on his face. 

“Stan,” Kev replies. “He’s sick. I gotta go to the hospital after work.”

“Who the fuck is Stan?” Mickey asks. 

Kev points to a black-and-white framed mugshot that’s hanging over the various spirits and bottles in the back. “Guy who owns the bar.”

“A legend among lone sharks,” Tommy throws in. “Broke more kneecaps in his day than any other shylock on the Southside.”

“Hell of a guy,” Dave says. 

“To Stan!” Tommy declares, raising his drink. 

Sure, why the hell not. “Yeah, Stan,” Mickey says, raising his half-drunk beer and clinking it with Kev’s mug that he just poured liquor in. When he brings it back up to face, Aileen tries to grab it from him, her mouth hanging open and her tongue poking out. 

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he says to her, holding it out of her reach. Her bottom lip pouts out and Mickey swears her blue eyes water. She’s been getting better at her puppy face. “Right, like I’m gonna give you fucking beer.”

“Fuck!” she declares, still reaching for his cup. Kev laughs at that. Mickey checks his watch. It’s nearly 11, and Ian calls in an hour. He doesn't want to miss it. 

“I gotta go,” he says, standing up and settling Aileen back in her stroller. He takes out a few bills and throws them down on the counter, then wraps himself up in the jacket Ian got him for Christmas.

“Sure thing,” Kev responds. “Hey, take care of yourself, okay, Mickey?”

 _What the fuck is that about?_ Mickey fixes Kev with a stare. “Yeah, sure,” he mumbles out, then steers Aileen’s stroller out of the bar. 

He makes it back with 40 minutes to spare, so he drags some of Aileen’s toys out into the living room and sets her on the carpet, spreading them around her. She immediately goes for the shape sorter, which has become a personal favorite of hers. Mickey doesn’t get it, because there’s only so many times you can fit a red square into its designated place, but whatever makes her happy, he guesses. 

He can’t help himself to not constantly check the clock every 5 minutes. It seems like time has suddenly decided to move through molasses. When noon hits, the phone doesn’t ring. Mickey worries his bottom lip with his teeth. 

“Dada!” Aileen says then, and he glances over at her and takes the block she’s holding out to him.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he says, then places it on top of the stack of blocks she’s started. “You making a tower?” Aileen grabs another block and shuffles herself onto her knees to rise up and place the block on the very top. Just then, the phone rings, and Aileen startles, dropping the toy. 

Mickey’s on his feet instantly, stumbling over to where the ancient landline lays (it still has a fuckng cord) and grabbing the phone, pressing it to his ear. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mick.”

Mickey feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders at the sound of Ian’s voice. He can practically hear his boyfriend smiling. 

“Oh, hey, Gallagher,” he says, acting as if he hadn’t been expecting Ian’s call. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing,” Ian sighs on the other end of the line. “Just thought I’d check in. You know, seeing as I have nothing better to do at noon on a Wednesday.”

“Is that right? Well, you didn’t have to call. I don’t wanna hear your scratchy-ass voice.”

“Hmm, well I don’t wanna hear your voice either. It’s like nails on a chalkboard.”

Mickey can’t help but grin, even though he knows Ian won’t see it. He leans against the wall and maybe even twines the cord around his finger. 

“I miss you,” Ian says after a comfortable silence. 

“Miss you too,” Mickey says back, because he really fucking _does._ “Though maybe not your singing.”

“Oh, fuck off, my singing’s angelic,” Ian responds. “Anything new happened?” 

“Not much. Svetlana’s still getting underpaid, we could really use your check, man. I, uh, looked for a job again today. Some coffee shop not far from here.”

“You did Mickey? That’s great! Did they hire you?”

It’s the excitement Ian has, the proud tone in his voice that makes Mickey lie. 

“Yeah, I got an interview on Friday.”

“That’s amazing! Hey, where’s Aileen?”

Mickey grins, then crouches down, holding his arms open wide. Aileen notices him and squeals, shoving herself to her feet and toddling over to Mickey. He catches her with one arm, scooping her up against his chest, and she wraps her legs around his waist. 

“You wanna say hi to Papa?” he says, holding the phone up to her ear. 

“Pa!” she says, kicking her legs excitedly, trying to grab the phone from Mickey. 

“Hey, princess!” Ian says on the other line. Mickey can hear him through the phone. “Are you being a good girl for Daddy?”

“Pa!” she says again, wriggling excitedly and pressing the phone more into her ear as if she can fall right through it and end up in Ian’s arms. 

“I bet you are!” Ian coos. “Eating all your vegetables, and all that shit.”

“Fuck no, she ain’t eating her vegetables,” Mickey scoffs out. 

“Fuck!” Aileen repeats. 

“Ah, I see, that’s still her favorite word?” Ian says, chuckling. 

“Pa!” she chirps again, then stares around the living room before glancing at Mickey and sticking her bottom lip out, as if she doesn’t really understand why she can hear her father’s voice but not see him with her. 

“I know, sweetheart,” Mickey says, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “He’ll be back very soon.”

“Don’t worry, Aileen,” Ian pipes up. “I’ll be back before you know it.” Aileen seems to be done with talking to Ian through a phone, so Mickey sets her back down on the ground, and she toddles back over to her block tower. 

“This is gonna take a really fucking long time,” Mickey says to Ian in an undertone. 

“No it won’t,” his boyfriend says. “I promise, it’s going to feel like the shortest time in the world. It’ll feel like… 2 seconds, before you’re back in my arms again.”

“Fuck you, you’ll be back in _my_ arms,” Mickey throws back. 

“Hm, no, I’ll wrap you up, push you down, fuck you nice and hard.”

“Shit, Ian.”

“I’ve thought about you a lot. Don’t worry, I haven’t fucked anyone here,” he quickly adds. “My hand and I’ve spent many lonely nights together.” Mickey scoffs at his words. “And I can’t wait until I get to feel you again, Mick. I know you’ll be better than all the times before.”

Ian's voice is low, rough, and it’s _doing_ things to Mickey, makes him feel things he hasn’t felt in a month. He hasn’t rubbed one out since Ian left, more focused on getting a job and taking care of Aileen and worrying about his boyfriend, so he’s practically desperate for _something_ now, his dick twitching just from Ian’s words and tone of voice.

“Yeah?” he says, his mouth feeling dry. “You gonna take care of me?”

“I will, Mick,” Ian promises. “So good. Just hold out for me, yeah?”

“Of course,” Mickey says back, then Ian swears. 

“Shit, time’s up.” 

Mickey’s heart falls. Ian only gets 5 minutes for a phone call, because there’s tons of other guys who want to call home, too. It’s like he’s at prison, not the army. 

“Okay, talk to you again on Sunday?” Mickey asks. 

“Yeah,” Ian says. “I love you, Mickey.”

“Love you too, Ian.”

“Tell Aileen I love her too.”

“Course. Talk to you later.”

“Bye, Mick.”

The line clicks, and Mickey hangs the phone back up. And it’s over. 

Nothing happens the rest of the day. He plays with Aileen some more, watches TV, then everyone else comes home, and it’s dinner time. Dinners are always awkward. Mandy’s so fucking quiet, and Kenyatta eats fast and then retreats to his and Mandy’s room without saying anything. Svetlana stares around at everyone, and Colin chatters away about whatever random shit is going through his head. Tonight, it’s about some chick he saw on the streets with a huge rack. 

Mickey and Mandy clean up the dishes, while Svetlana hides away in her room and Colin goes and does whatever the fuck he does at night. Probably drugs. 

“Did Ian call today?” Mandy asks quietly. 

“Yeah,” Mickey responds, taking a dish from her and drying. 

“What’d he say?”

“Nothing much, same as last week. Just that he misses us.”

Mandy nods and Mickey notices that she’s been washing the same plate for the third time now. “I think it’s clean,” he says and takes it from her. 

She startles. “Right… sorry.”

Mickey frowns at his sister. A month ago, hell, two months ago, she would have snapped at him, called him a fuckwad, but now she just does nothing, and goes onto washing out a cup. He thinks her shoulders are inching up closer and closer to her ears each day. 

_What the fuck is wrong with her?_

He wants to ask her that, but he wants to do it in a way where he’ll get an honest answer, not just some bullshit excuse about being on her period or something, but he takes too long in thinking a way to do it that she’s done with washing the dishes and leaves him alone. Whatever. Maybe it is her period. Mickey finishes drying, then scoops Aileen up from her high chair. She babbles his name and claps her hands together. 

“Wanna go take a bath?” he coos at her, and she shakes her head, clasping her hands over her ears. Mickey chuckles. Aileen still fucking hates water, no matter how many times she takes a bath. Mickey doesn’t blame her. 

Bathing is even more of a challenge now that Ian isn’t here. Aileen tries to climb out of the tub whenever Mickey’s back is turned, and she splashes water everywhere (Mickey’s convinced she splashes him a few times on purpose) and throws her toys around the bathroom. Finally, though, she’s dried off and wrapped up in the elephant blanket he and Ian got her for Christmas, and he brings her back to his room. 

He dresses her up in her sleeper and sets her in between his legs on the bed, spreading out her books in front of her. “Which one do you want to read tonight?” he asks, and she leans forward, clumsily grabbing onto _Brown Bear, Brown Bear,_ letting out an “Uh!” as she picks it up. 

“Okay,” Mickey says, gently taking it from her. She snuggles up against him, and he finds himself wishing for the millionth time that day that Ian were here. Fuck off, maybe he likes how his voice sounds when he reads to their daughter- deep and slow and relaxing. Maybe Mickey’s nodded off a few times himself. 

After the story, he grabs a bottle and fills it with warm milk, feeding it to her while she snuggles up in his arms. She’s so fucking sleepy afterwards, yawning sweetly as she tires to bury her face in the crook of his elbow. He takes time before he puts her in her crib, gently stroking her hair and over her nose and her cheeks. She preens from his attention, making sleepy noises, and Mickey takes another few minutes before he climbs out of bed, holding her tightly in his arms, and lays her down in her crib. 

He drapes a soft blanket over her, which she bunches up in her fists and drags up to underneath her chin, letting out another yawn. 

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” he says quietly, and makes sure her eyes are shut and her breathing is steady before he slips out of the room. He finds himself in front of the TV, mindlessly flipping through channels. It’s too early to go to bed yet- only 8 o’clock, but it’s not like he has extravagant night plans. If Ian were here, they’d be watching some boring-ass history documentary because Ian loves that shit, while Mickey complains about how ugly people were back then, so he flips to the history channel. There’s a documentary playing on how people used to dig wells. It’s dry as fuck, but he finds himself watching it, because it reminds him of Ian. 

It ends, and Mickey still doesn’t feel better. It’s way too early to go to sleep, but he doesn’t feel like doing anything else, so he gets up and is about to head to the bathroom when he hears the unmistakable sounds of sex from Mandy and Kenyatta’s room. 

Their door is open a crack, showing them rolling around in their bed, giggling together, and it reminds Mickey that Ian is fucking 5 hours away right now, so snaps at them to “Close the goddamndamn door!” and slams it on them. “Nobody wants to see that Mandingo shit! Fuck!” He shakes himself off as he makes his way to the bathroom, and shuts the door after him, locking himself away in his own private world. 

Ian’s words from earlier are swimming around in his head. _I miss you. I’ve thought about you. I can’t wait to feel you again._

His dick twitches for the first time in a month. He leans against the sink and stares at his reflection in the mirror, his mind racing. 

_Wrap you up, push you down, fuck you nice and hard._

_So good._

He grabs the crumpled-up photo of Ian that he shoves in his pocket each morning and jams it between the side of the mirror and its wooden frame. The cocky smirk Ian’s wearing in the photo is enough to make arousal coil lazily in his belly as he shoves his sweatpants and boxers down far enough to get his dick out, bracing himself with a hand to the sink. 

Keeping his eyes on Ian’s face, on his lips, his hand that’s flipping off the camera, he jerks himself off quickly, trying to get his dick more stimulated past a half-chub.

_Wrap you up, push you down, fuck you nice and hard. Shit, Ian. I’ve thought a lot about you. I can’t wait to feel you again, Mick. You gonna take care of me? I will, Mick. So good. I love you. I miss you._

5 more months. 

At that thought, he yanks his hand out of his boxers and punches the mirror right next to the picture of Ian. Pain explodes from his knuckles, and he jerks his hand back. “Fuck!” 

That’s too long. That’s way too fucking long. Mickey has no idea how he’s supposed to last until then. He pants hard from the pain in his hand and cradles it. His knuckles are bleeding, right beneath the FUCK. 

Someone knocks on the door just then, and he hears Svetlana’s voice call out to him from the hallway. “Are you okay?”

 _No._ “Yeah,” he says back to her. “I slipped.” _Lie._

“Hurry up. I need to use the toilet.” 

Mickey stares at Ian’s picture for another few seconds, then grabs it from the mirror, folding it up and sticking it back into his pocket, then throws the door open and breezes past Svetlana, going into his room and collapsing on his bed. 

***

Ian can’t sleep. He hasn’t been able to sleep lately. Too many thoughts run through his head. After the lights flick out, he lies on his back and couts the rafters on the roof or seconds in his head or sometimes he grabs the picture of Mickey and Aileen he keeps under his pillow and studies it in the moonlight. 

That’s what he’s doing right now- curled up on his side, teetering dangerously close to the edge of his bunk, squinting down at the picture of his family. He misses them. Fuck, does he miss them. He misses Mickey’s smile and the way he would run his fingers through Ian’s hair and he misses how Aileen would hold her arms up to him and say his name. He misses Mandy. He even misses Colin and Svetlana. 

Boot camp is turning out to be not so great after all. The early morning wake-ups and the surprise runs and the workouts that leave him nearly unable to stand at the end of the day. Not to mention the disgusting cafeteria food. The only things that push him through the day are the bi-weekly calls with Mickey and Aileen and the letters Mickey writes to him everyday with his nearly unreadable chicken scratch. 

He doesn’t get along with the other guys, either. They all talk about new guns that get released, or some new video game, and yes, Ian talks about those things too, but whenever he mentions his daughter, they laugh at him. Call him a pussy. As if having a family is only for little bitches. He doesn't talk about Mickey, though, because he doesn't want to get hussled for being gay, and lets them believe his baby mama fucked off and left him with an infant. 

He doesn’t know if he can do 5 more months until he can see them face-to-face again, and 2 more _fucking_ years until he can stay for long. He hates this. Hates it so fucking much. The phone calls and the letters aren’t worth the empty feeling he gets in his heart. Then he realizes that this is regret. He fucking _regrets_ going to the army. 

It’s disappointing. For _years_ now, he’s dreamed of enlisting and making something great of himself, so the notion that he regrets living out his dream is kind of… terrifying. 

He brings the photo close to his face and stares down at it, memorizing how Mickey and Aileen look. Relaxed. Carefree. Loving. Familial. 

He misses it. Fuck, does he miss it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! First chapter done! Mickey and Ian are pining after each other, hard. 🙁  
> As always, comments and kudos are my crack!  
> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/blazingskies29).
> 
> Uummm can we talk about 11x06? Literally made me cry my eyes out. Mickey is the bravest boy in the whole universe. 😭😭 Also Debbie can fuck off. Sandy should replace her in the Gallagher family and raise Franny.


	2. Like Father, Like Daughter/Strangers on a Train

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tell them to shut the fuck up!” he yells at Svetlana, who is the only form of communication between Mickey and the girls now.  
> “You take jobs away!” she screams back at him and he brushes past her, unable to deal with the yelling anymore.   
> “Yes, I know, and I will think of something!”  
> 4.03-4.04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: sad Mickey. :( Poor baby. He's missing Ian so hard. While I was skimming through season 4 for this chapter, I realized Mickey was actually depressed over Ian leaving, and it hit me right in the feels.

Ian’s check comes on Saturday. It’s $1,675, and Mickey immediately shoves it in the envelope that holds all their money and used to live underneath Colin’s mattress. He’s been steadily adding to it whenever Mandy or Kenyatta or Colin or Svetlana get paid from their various jobs, and it holds over $7,000 now, the bill nearly spilling out. Bills are due in a few days, so the envelope will probably deflate drastically after then. 

Mickey knows he needs to open a bank account. $7,000 is too much to have in cash, stuffed in an envelope and stored under his Ben Wa beads in the Southside. It’s way too much of a risk. The thing is… he knows how sketchy he’s going to look going into the bank, with his knuckle tats and baggy clothes and the scowl he gets around strangers. 

So he’s kind of waiting for Ian to come back for that one week in June, and he’ll have him do it. He could probably charm the panties off the bank teller. It surprises Mickey that two years ago, he was in juvie, and now he’s worrying about bank accounts and vaccines. 

Aileen needs to get her shots soon. She had her first dose of Hepatitis B after birth, and she’ll need another one soon. Not to mention she needs her first doses of the mumps, measles, and chickenpox vaccines. That’s another thing he wants to do when Ian’s here. He can’t imagine trying to calm a screaming toddler by himself. 

But good vaccines, not shady-ass ones that the free clinics hand out, are really fucking expensive, which is why he needs to get a job. A good job, not working minimum wage at some convenience store again. Ian asks him about the interview he lied about on their call on Saturday, and Mickey says he didn’t make the cut. Ian sounds disappointed, but tells Mickey he’ll find another one, and now Mickey’s even more determined. 

On Monday, he sets out job searching, but stops by the Alibi to see if Kev and V can watch Aileen. Maybe people will actually hire him if he doesn’t have the threat of bringing a baby into work each day. 

When he makes his way into the Alibi, shivering from the cold outside, Tommy is yelling at Kev about putting a lock on the door. 

“There’s always the alley!” Kev yells back. “If you don’t mind freezing your nuts off.”

“We’re already dishing out more for booze. Our piss should be free,” Tommy complains, guestering to his beer. “Oh, hey, Mickey.”

“Hey,” Mickey responds, peeling off his itchy scarf. 

“The usual?” V asks him, drying off a glass. She doesn’t wait to hear his reply before responding to Tommy. “It’s a quarter. Consider it payback for the tips you don’t leave.” 

“Uh, not today,” Mickey says to her as Kev walks back from over by the bathrooms, still arguing with Tommy. “Can you do me a favor? Watch Aileen for a few hours?”

V glances down at Aileen in her stroller, waving at her and grinning. “I suppose so. Should be good practice.”

Mickey frowns and parks Aileen’s stroller by the side of the bar, untucking her blanket from underneath her arms so she doesn't overheat. “Practice for what?”

“All you need is 3 sheets,” Kev says loudly right next to Mickey, talking about toilet paper. “One up, one down, one to polish.”

“What are you polishing?” V asks, then grimaces. “Never mind. Watch the bar, I gotta go puke.” She takes the key from Kev and goes into the bathroom. 

“Can you please aim for the drain this time?” Kev calls after her, pleading with his hands. 

“Why doesn’t she have to pay?” Tommy asks. 

“Employees puke for free.”

“Never mind, man,” Mickey butts in. “Can you watch Aileen?”

“Of course I can!” Kev coos immediately, reaching into the stroller and tickling Aileen. She giggles, but Mickey bristles. He’s neve quite gotten used to other people touching his daughter. “What’s the occasion?”

“I need to find a job. And a good one, one that pays more than minimum wage.”

“Good luck with that,” Kev says. He unbuckles Aileen and lifts her out of the stroller, setting her on his hip. “I’ll teach her how to pour tap.”

“No you fucking will not!” Mickey snaps, and Kev throws up his free hand. 

“Jesus, I was just kidding. She’ll be good practice, anyway.”

“Practice for what?”

“Veronica’s pregnant!” Kev says, grinning. 

Mickey’s eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, with triplets, no less!”

“Isn’t her mom also pregnant with your kid?” Tommy asks, sipping his beer. 

“Yup! I’m gonna have four babies soon,” Kev says, bouncing Aileen. 

“Jesus,” Mickey says. “One is bad enough. Text me if anything happens, alright?”

Kev nods. “Sure thing.” 

It makes unease swirl in Mickey’s stomach, leaving his daughter at a bar like that, with drunk guys and beer and cigarette smoke and Kevin fucking Ball, but what other choice does he have? 

The winter wind is bitter and sharp and Mickey wishes for the thousandth time in his life that he lives in fucking Hawaii or something. He pulls his coat tighter around himself and shoves his gloved hands in his armpits, but that does nothing. He’s still so fucking cold. 

He walks all around the Southside, and the only place that’s hiring that he hasn’t been in yet is some gas station, the kind that Colin works at. Mickey doesn’t want to go in. He promised himself he wouldn’t work at some dead-end, minimum wage job again. But they need the money. And he needs something to occupy his days before he goes insane. 

So he bottles his pride and shoves open the door to the gas station. 

“You hiring?” he grunts out to the guy behind the counter. He looks about 60, with a beer gut and stringy hair. 

“You need your parole officer here if you’re going to apply for a job,” the man says without looking up from a magazine he’s reading. 

_What. The. Fuck._

“I’m not on parole, I haven't been to jail,” Mickey snaps, gritting his teeth. The man spares him 3 seconds to glance him over, then returns to his magazine. 

“Okay… How old are you?”

“18.”

He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Why don’t you leave me your phone number and I’ll ask my manager?” He slides a stained pad of paper and a pen over to Mickey, who takes them, trying not to snap. 

He writes his phone number down, and the pen dies out at the last number, so he shoves the pad back at the man after he’s done. He leaves quickly, not saying another word to the guy, wanting to get out of there before he punches someone. 

That was… not what he was hoping for. At all. Maybe he should’ve taken a page out of Ian’s book and fucked off to the army. A wind whips through the gas station parking lot, so he digs around in his pocket and grabs his lighter and a pack of cigarettes, lighting one and taking a long drag, letting the warmth of the smoke flow through him. 

It’s funny how his life can go to shit in just a month. His boyfriend left, he lost his job, and now his sister’s acting all fucking weird. He grabs his phone and checks it, but there’s no texts from Kev. He wishes there was. Maybe it would add something interesting to his day. 

He takes the long way back to the Alibi, going down random streets that he could easily get lost in, letting the cold weather numb him. 

Because that’s how he feels lately. 

Numb. 

Sure, he still fucking loves Aileen, but lately, whenever he looks at her, he only sees his boyfriend. And he has those bi-weekly calls with Ian, but even those aren’t living up to his expectations anymore. They’ve run out of things to talk about because they say everything in their letters, so their calls have just become them telling each other how much they miss each other, which just makes the situation even more depressing. 

As he walks, Mickey throws around the idea of going to visit the Gallaghers. Maybe for dinner or something. But then again, isn’t the only time he’s ever been with him when he’s with Ian? It’s no secret that Fiona doesn’t like him. Sure, she’s warmed up to him over the year, and sometimes she’s even been nice to him, but usually her answers are short and clipped and she always looks at him like she expects him to start punching everybody in his radius or pound back coke. 

So he decides against going to the Gallaghers. He’s sure he’s not welcome as just himself. 

He goes through 3 cigarettes by the time he’s made it back to the Alibi, and when he sees the red store front and checks his phone for the time, guilt shoots through him. 

He had been out for nearly an hour and a half, aimlessly walking, and he smoked more cigarettes at one time than he has in 4 days. Aileen. She’s going to be crying her eyes out because he walked so long, and he’s going to smell like smoke around his daughter, which is the exact type of thing he chastises other people for. 

He throws his cigarette down and crushes it under his boot, blowing his breath out to get rid of the smell, then makes his way into the bar. 

He’s able to let out some tension when he spies Aileen nestled in V’s arms, who’s pouring beer on tap for some guy at the bar. She nods at him when he makes his way over, and wordlessly hands off Aileen, who’s half asleep. 

Mickey cradles Aileen in his lap, and she buries her head into his sweater, curling her fingers over the folds near the crook of his elbow. He gently strokes her hair, and glances up at V, asking if she ever cried. 

“Not really,” V responds. “Was all whining and shit though, after you left, but Kev distracted her with all the different colored glasses” She pours him his usual beer, and he takes a sip of it, hoping the alcohol will help coax the thoughts out of his head. 

“So, I heard you’re having triplets.”

V scoffs. “Yeah. 4 months of trying and saying I’ll have a 0.01% chance of getting pregnant, all of a sudden, it’s like wham- now you have three. I guess all that banging like bunnies paid off eventually. Not to mention the one my mom's having fr us."

Mickey grimaces at the image. “Christ. I can’t even imagine 4. Aileen was hard enough, and apparently, she’s one of the easiest babies ever. That’s what Ian always says.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking the only way I’m going to get through it is with a bottle of vodka and some real good weed.”

Mickey has to smile at that. 

Mandy slinks into his room that night, right before he reads Aileen a story. Her mascara is smudged underneath her eyes and her shoulders are drooping heavily. Mickey doesn’t say anything, just lets her crawl into his bed and lay her head on his shoulder. 

Aileen turns towards her, lifting up her arms. “Ma!” she chirps, and Mandy smooths a hand down her head. 

“Hey, Aileen,” she sighs out. 

“I was just gonna read to her,” Mickey says.

“Okay.”

Tonight, it’s _Green Eggs and Ham,_ and when Ian would read it to Aileen, he would do funny voices for the characters, and Mickey’s heart hurts remembering it. When he’s done, he makes Mandy hold Aileen on her lap while he heats up milk for Aileen. 

After she’s in her crib, asleep, Mandy’s still there. 

It reminds Mickey of when they were younger, after their mother died, and Terry would drink each night, making Mandy crawl into bed next to Mickey. He would wrap his arms around her and eye his glock lying on his bedside table, but Terry would never come in. He only wanted Mandy when she was alone. 

In fact, the way she’s leaning up against him right now, staring down at her hands in her lap, completely still, not even making a noise to breathe, he can’t help but wonder if Kenyatta is doing the same thing to her that Terry used to. Mickey doesn’t know how long they lie there for, but when he wakes up the next morning, Mandy’s still there. 

The next day, Svetlana makes even less cash. This is getting fucking old. They _need_ that money. The bills took a lot out of them, and Mickey’s worried about groceries for the next week. It doesn't help that everyone else in the house has no fucking concept of saving, either. Mandy took nearly $50 out for her makeup, and Colin spent a shit ton on weed, and now Mickey needs to find a new hiding place before they next time they decide they can help themselves to the whole Milkovich household savings. 

So when Svetlana throws down not even $200 on the table during breakfast, he decides it’s time for action. He has Mandy watch Aileen, then demands Svetlana show him the way to the “spa” she works at. 

He drags her behind him as she complains loudly and shouts out directions and yells at him in Russian. The spa is a dingy, poorly-light store, with some guys sitting in waiting chairs and a man behind the reception desk who Mickey immediately starts yelling at. 

“What the fuck is this?” The man glances up from whatever the fuck he was doin on his phone. “How many blowjobs you give yesterday?” he demands out of Svetlana, who rests a hand against her stomach, out of breath. 

“10 blowjobs,” she pants. 

“How many tugs?”

“5.”

“That’s on top of two guys-” Mickey holds up two fingers because this guy is staring at him like he doesn't understand English. Maybe he doesn’t. Whatever. Mickey needs to get this out of his system. “-you shelled out for a full belly ride. You sent her home with a measly 200 bucks?” He holds up the money, but the man just looks bored.

“Sasha sets the price,” he says with an accent. 

“Well, Sasha needs to find out that my wife’s a hooker, not a slave,” Mickey snaps. He hates saying that, that Svetlana’s his fucking _wife,_ just another reminder of how much his dad has fucked him over, but if playing the husband card will put food on their table until Ian’s next check in a month, then he supposes that’s the way it has to be. 

The man isn’t impressed, though, and glares back at him. 

Then Mickey snaps. His life fucking sucks right now. No Ian, no job, no money, having to fucking worry about fucking Svetlana. 

So he makes up his mind. “Okay?” he shrugs. “Okay. Now this is happening.” He makes his way over to the rooms where girls are no doubt kneeling with dicks down their throats, and bangs on each and every one of them. “Out! Get out! Let’s go!” Confused, naked, Russian women open the doors, staring at him. “Yes, put it on, and let’s go. Ey, c’mon, you deserve better than this!” He opens the door to a shirtless chick riding some greasy old guy, and gestures to her. “I don’t care if you're mid-pump. Come with me. Ey-” He throws the door open on another whore. “You wanna get paid a little more for putting a stranger’s dick in your mouth?”

They may not understand a whole lot of English, but they get the general gist, and start tugging on their jackets as Svetlana ushers them out of the rooms. The men they were servicing stand in the doorways, their mouths hanging open, confused. 

“Come on!” Mickey shouts to a few slow girls. “Move, move, you can clean it off later, I don’t care if it’s sticky. Go! Come on, get out! Let’s fucking go!” 

Some girl is glaring daggers at him, throwing an ugly ass bright red and fluffy coat over her shoulders that looks like it belongs on the cover of a Victorian romance novel. 

“Yes, put that on, fuck me. Hi, guys!” he adds to the old men, then turns to the receptionist. “Look at all your happy customers, huh?” He follows the girls out the door, and adds one final remark. “No one’s getting laid, ‘till they get paid.”

“I tell Sasha,” the man calls after him. 

“Yeah, tell him to go fuck himself!” 

They look like such a weird fucking parade, walking down the streets of Chicago in the middle of winter, Mickey leading nearly a dozen prostitutes who are all talking to each other in fast Russian. 

“This is stupid idea,” Svetlana hisses to him. 

“Hmm, well, I could always kick you out for not paying me for the bills and you can have your fucking devil spawn on the streets.” 

“You are useless fucking husband,” she spits at him. 

“Good.” 

He ushers them through the back alley ways so as not to attract the cops too much, and leads them all into the Alibi, warmth hitting his face. 

“Hey,” he calls to Kev, who’s manning the bar. “Line up a shot for the Abe Lincoln of mouth whores.”

“Excuse me?” V says, but grabs him a glass anyway. 

Mickey peels off his gloves and scarf and takes his usual seat at the bar. “I emancipated my not-wife and her fellow cum guzzlers. Gonna do to the Russian what they’ve been doing to my girls- bring ‘em to their knees.”

“Why?” Tommy asks next to him. “Svetlana wouldn’t even be in this country if the Russian hadn’t smuggled her in originally.”

“That gives them the right to pay her next to nothing, huh?” Mickey says back to him, and Tommy throws his hands up. 

Svetlana materializes next to him, complaining about how they’re thirsty. 

“Good thing there’s a sink in the fucking bathroom, huh?” he snaps back at her, holding up a dirty glass next to his elbow for her to use. 

She stares at him, then mutters something in Russian and walks away. 

Mickey stares after her. Like he knows what that means. 

“Yo, how do they get away with it?” Kev asks, pouring a shot for him. 

“Get away with what?” 

“Forcing them to work for so cheap?”

Mickey shrugs. “I don’t know, guns and beatings, mostly. I mean, look, what choice do they have, they got no ID, they barely speak the language, they’re fresh off the boat. Sasha can pay them whatever the fuck he wants.” He glances back at the girls, huddled around tables, talking in low voices to each other. “Not anymore. Now they’ve got me.” He tosses back the shot, and holds his glass out for another one, but Kev moves away, says something to V, then leaves. 

Mickey grabs the bowl of peanuts that were left next to him and scoops some up with his fingers. Svetlana walks over to him again, with her phone in her hand. 

“Sasha wants meeting,” she snaps at him, and Mickey grins. 

“What did I tell you, huh?” he says to no one in particular. “Russians’ waving the white flag already.”

“You do know what happened to Lincoln in the end, right?” V asks, wiping down the bar. 

_No._ “Are you kidding? I could barely get through the opening credits.” He grabs his jacket and scarf, and goes to meet Sasha. 

The spa is empty when he goes back, suspiciously empty. The receptionist guy isn’t there, and the whole place is still and dark. A bad feeling swims in his stomach, and he slides his gun out of the back of his belt, cocking it before slipping it back in. 

He hears shouts come from the back of the store, and makes his way back there, opening the heavy steel door to see a short woman with frizzy blonde hair yelling at a man in Russian as he directs a large truck backing up. 

“Sasha,” the man yells, and the woman turns around to stare at Mickey. 

_Oh._

“Wait, you’re Sasha?” Mickey asks, guesting to her. She looks more like someone’s crazy aunt than a hardass pimp. 

“You were smaller than I thought you would be,” she says slowly, looking him up and down. 

He scratches the back of his head. “Ditto. Okay, look, it’s 20% raise on bumping uglies, 30% on BJs, and whatever happens in the ass stays in the ass.” 

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means the ladies pocket tips for extras, not you.” He crosses his arms and stares down at her. Sure, he may be short, and Ian may tease him about it constantly, but he can pack a mean punch, and he needs Sasha to know that if he’s going to win.

But she isn’t impressed. “Hmm, you a tough negotiator?”

“You need girls,” he points out.

“True,” she agrees, then turns to the man behind her and says something in Russian, pointing to the truck. He and a few of his buddies open up the back, showering the dozen of girls packed inside with light.

“They grew up near Chernobyl,” Sasha says to Mickey as the men help the girls down from the truck. “So I got a discount.”

“I’m flexible on those numbers,” Mickey tries, but Sasha steps up to his face. 

“Your girls are tired and stretched out. Go fuck yourself.” She brushes past him, and the new whores follow her, looking scared and tried. 

“Hi,” he says to them awkwardly. _Oops._

Svetlana and the rest of the now jobless whores aren’t happy. As soon as he goes back to the Milkovich house, where he had Svetlana take them after the Alibi, and tells them what happened, they start yelling. In Russian. 

Mickey doesn’t think he’s ever had something he hates so quick as the Russian language. 

After about 5 minutes of listening to that shit, he finally snaps. 

“Tell them to shut the fuck up!” he yells at Svetlana, who is the only form of communication between Mickey and the girls now.

“You take jobs away!” she screams back at him and he brushes past her, unable to deal with the yelling anymore. 

“Yes, I know, and I will think of something!”

“They say you are stupid fucking idiot!” 

“Well, what’d you say back!”

“That you also have small dick!” 

That’s it for Mickey. 

He whirls around a stomps into the kitchen, where Mandy and Kenyatta are hovering by the stove, out of the way of angry Russians. 

“Jesus Christ,” he snaps, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “Whatever happened to a man’s home being his fucking castle?”

“You started this,” Mandy points out, just as some Russian chick with giant hoops runs into the kitchen, throwing her hands up and yelling at him. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re saying!” he yells at her, then stomps into the living room, trying to shake her off, but she just follows him, still yelling. “Oh my god. I don’t know what that means!” As a last ditch effort, he points around to all of the whores and yells, “Look, don’t worry, we’ll get a dick in you, soon as we can!” 

Then he escapes to his room, slamming the door. “Fuck!” He kicks the wall, maybe a little too hard, as it rattles the doorframe, and Aileen bursts into tears. 

“Fuck,” he breathes again, immediantly rushing over to her and scooping her out of her crib. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it.” 

He presses her against his chest, gently rocking back and forth as she slowly calms down. Once her sobbing has subsided, he sits on the edge of his bed and places her in his lap, wiping the corners of her eyes as she clings onto his sleeves. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I just can’t stand this, Aileen. It’s too fucking long. I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive another 5 months of your other dad being away.”

“Da?” Aileen coos, staring up at him. 

“No, not me,” Mickey sighs. “Papa.”

“Pa!” she chirps, kicking her legs a little, all tears forgotten. 

“Yeah. Pa.” Mickey cups the back of her head and hugs her close to him. “Does it make me a bitch that I miss him so much like this? I just- I don’t know if I can do this alone. It’s really fucking hard.” He feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and wipes them away quickly. No. He’s not going to cry. 

He stays there, with Aileen on his lap, until his stomach starts rumbling. He checks the clock on his bedside table. Past noon. 

“What do you think about some lunch, huh?” he says to Aileen. When he stands, she wraps his legs around his waist and he balances her on his hip. “Oof, you’re getting heavy, sweetheart,” he chuckles. 

Some of the girls are gone from the couches when he leaves his room- there’s only 2 left, and Svetlana is nowhere in sight. He spies Debbie Gallagher, dressed in an oversized purple coat and a multicolored hat, making her way to the front door, and he calls out to her. 

“What were you doing here?”

Debbie turns around to him. “I came for Mandy.” She looks crestfallen over something, and hesitates, gripping the straps of her backpack. 

“Why don’t you hold Aileen for a bit while I make a sandwich,” Mickey offers. Debbie seems to perk up immediately, taking Mickey’s daughter from him. She coos to her while he digs around in the fridge for the jelly. 

“Heard anything new from Ian?” Debbie asks, and it takes all of Mickey’s willpower not to snap at her. 

It feels like whenever she sees him, she asks him the same exact question. If he heard anything new, he would tell her. He doesn't need Debbie to remind him that his boyfriend’s away. 

“No, same as last time,” he manages while he spreads peanut butter on a slice of bread. “He just says that boot camp is shit and he misses all of us.” 

“Oh,” Debbie says. Then, “Do you miss him?”

Mickey refuses to look at her. He considers lying, saying he doesn't care, but what good would that do. “Every day,” he whispers. 

He has Debbie put Aileen in her high chair while he makes her lunch. Debbie leaves soon, saying she has to meet friends, and Mickey takes both lunches over to the dining room, setting Aileen’s rolled-up sandwich bites and applesauce in front of her. 

She immediately sticks her fingers in the apple sauce, ignoring the spoon, and scoops some up, shoveling it into her mouth. 

“We gotta work on your manners,”Mickey tells her, grabbing a napkin and wiping her mouth where she smeared some of the apple sauce. She tilts her head, frowning, as she tries to get Mickey to stop wiping her mouth, but he just follows after her until she’s all clean. 

She retaliates that by shoving more applesauce into her mouth, some of it dribbling down her chin. Mickey lets out a long suffering sigh. Trying to keep a baby clean is fighting a losing battle. 

Just then, the three leftover Russians move into the dining room, one after the other, looking like some sort fucking band trio. 

“Baby?” the one in the front says, pointing to Aileen. 

Mickey doesn’t even know what she’s asking, but he responds with, “No, fuck off,” anyway. She frowns, then turns to the other girls and says something in rapid-fire Russian. Mickey grits his teeth. The language is starting to give him a fucking headache. 

Svetlana comes back later, dragging behind her more grumpy Russians, all laden down with grocery bags full of cheap food and random toiletries. 

“What, you’re gonna have them sleep here?” Mickey snaps at Svetlana when he peers into the bags. 

“Nowhere else,” Svetlana says back. “They sleep on couches.”

“The hell they ain’t!” 

Svetlana turns and shouts something to a blonde girl with a lazy eye, who gives Mickey a death glare, then marches over to the couch by the TV and plops herself down in it, crossing her arms and making it very clear she’s not leaving. The other almost-dozen follow suit. 

Trying to argue with pissed-off Russian whores is also like trying to fight a losing battle. 

“Fine,” he snaps, giving up. “They can stay.”

“Until you find other jobs,” Svetlana adds. 

“Why the fuck do I have to find them other jobs?”

“Because you take jobs away, you can find new ones.”

As soon as he wakes up the next morning, an idea pops into his head. Kev’s been complaining ever since the owner of the Alibi, Stan, died, about the apartment over the bar he used to live in and not knowing what to do about it. Well, now Mickey knows what he can do. 

The girls need a place to sleep and jobs, and Kev needs someone to rent out the apartment. Not to mention Mickey needs a job, as well. He could just transport the girls above the Alibi, make a new spa. That would really fuck with Sasha. 

After she’s fed and watered, he bundles Aileen up in her winter coat and straps her in her stroller. 

“Why don’t we go for a little walk?” he coos to her. “Go visit Kev?”

She babbles something incoherent, pointing in the direction of Mickey’s bed, where her bunny is laying. Mickey grabs it for her, and she wraps her arms around its neck, cooing happily. 

“You better not drop that,” Mickey warns. “I ain’t washing mud out of its fur.”

She doesn’t drop the stuffed animal all the way to the Alibi, and Mickey has to admit, he’s kind of impressed. The bar isn’t too busy that morning, and he spies Kev’s hulking form immediately and makes his way over to him. 

“Yo, Kev, you clean out that apartment yet?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he responds. “Just got it cleaned out, I’m gonna set up some fliers, see if I can rent it out.”

“Look, I know how you can make a boatload more,” Mickey says quickly. “Rent it by the hour.” Kev, who had his back turned to him, arranging clean glasses, turns around and lifts an eyebrow at him. “Look, I got the labor force already, all I need is a clientele and a location. You got both,” he says in a low voice. Kev leans in close. 

“What kinda labor force?”

“Svetlana’s fellow hand whores,” Mickey says. 

“The same ones who were in here yesterday?”

“The very same.”

Kev thinks about it for a moment. Then he nods, and holds his hand out for Mickey to shake.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The next day, Wednesday, Ian doesn't call. 

He’s always been so fucking diligent about calling on time, and it’s not like Mickey has the phone number of the army base he’s at, it’s not like he can trace the previous calls back. He sits in the living room, doing nothing, for an hour, while the girls play cards around him and Aileen stacks blocks. 

Eventually, he gives up and takes Aileen for a walk outside. He goes fast, nearly running, his heart beating too quickly, his chest feeling tight. Why the fuck didn’t Ian call? He didn’t get a letter this morning, either. This is exactly what he feared. That while Ian is at the army, they’ll fade away. Forget about each other. 

Walking doesn't help his mood. After Aileen’s in bed that night, he goes through a pack of smokes on the back porch. When he gets back inside, his hands immediately turning hot from the temperature change, Svetlana’s there, frowning at him. 

“The fuck are you looking at,” he snaps at her, and she doesn’t respond, but he can feel her eyes bearing into his. 

The next morning, he doesn't want to get up. What the fuck is the point? It’s not like Ian is going to call instead, like he missed a day. No. But Aileen’s wails prompt him to drag himself out of bed and get her changed and dressed for the day. 

Ian going to the army was a fucking stupid idea. What was he doing, letting him go like that? Now he’ll never get his boyfriend back. How could Ian do this to him, to Aileen? 

Kev reaches out to him to say that the city is doing repairs to the sidewalk outside of the Alibi, so there’s no way they can get the girls set up in the apartment upstairs today. So what’s even the point of doing anything? 

Mickey doesn’t even bother changing out of his boxers and Ian’s t-shirt as he lounges in front of the TV, a beer in hand, watching over Aileen as she plays. She’s recently been obsessed with the brightly colored xylophone she got for Christmas, banging on it and clapping her hands together from the noise. 

Later in the morning, Svetlana gathers all the girls together and announces they’re all going “out.” A shit ton of girls have disappeared over the past couple of days, as they’ve found other places to live, with friends or fuckbuddies, and now only four remain (other than Svetlana), but it’s still a whole lot more than Mickey would like. But whatever. At least he’ll get some peace and quiet from Russian chattering now. 

He’s flipping through channels, and is stuck on the food network when he hears the back door creak open. He doesn’t turn around to look at who it is, figuring it must be one of the girls, having forgotten something, so he’s absolutely shocked when he hears, “Hello? Anybody home?”

Mickey jumps up and whirls around, his heart trying to beat itself out of his chest. 

Because standing there in the fucking kitchen is none other than Ian fucking Gallagher. 

_Holy fuck._

Mickey doesn’t hesitate. He launches himself across the whole goddamn house and barrels himself into his boyfriend’s body, wrapping his arms around his waist, tightly, very nearly knocking his head dangerously against Ian’s chin. 

Ian laughs, and hugs Mickey back, pulling him against his body, one hand buried in his hair. Mickey lets himself cling onto Ian for another second, letting his firm body and his scent ground him, then he pulls back and shoves at Ian. 

“What the fuck?” he spits out. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Ian just gives him his lopsided grin, bringing his hands up to cup Mickey’s face. “The army isn’t shit compared to you, Mickey,” he says quietly. “Nothing could ever replace you.”

Mickey surges forward, pressing their lips together, making Ian _know_ how much he missed him, slipping his tongue into his boyfriend’s mouth, reaching up to grab the beanie off Ian’s head that he’s wearing to run his fingers through his strands. 

His hair’s longer, and Mickey can feel that it’s sharply cut a little bit more than halfway down his scalp, and clipped rather short on the bottom. He kisses him until he’s out of air and his head is starting to hurt, then pulls back and wraps an arm around his neck, keeping them close together so they’re breathing in each other’s mouths, wrapped up in each other. 

“Fuck, you have no idea how much I missed you,” Ian breathes out. 

“I missed you too, asshole,” Mickey responds. Some part of his brain knows he should be worried about the fact that Ian’s _here_ when he should be in the army, but he can’t make himself to care right now. “You back for good?” 

“For good,” Ian says. “Now where’s Aileen?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course Ian's back. These boys could never stay away for long, could they?  
> Side note: anyone else see the photos for 11x07? I can't wait for that gay friends scene…. ;)


	3. There's the Rub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey glances over at Lip and raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms. Lip gets the message to get the fuck out of his house and makes his way back over to the door. Mickey sees him out, but Lip turns around while he’s still standing in the door frame.   
> “Does he seem… different to you?” Lip asks in a low tone.   
> Mickey glares at him. “No,” he snaps, shutting the door as soon as Lip steps fully outside.   
> 4.05

He tells Mickey everything that happened as Aileen sits on his lap, curled up so her entire body is tucked underneath his chin, pressed into his chest as far as she could go, like she wants to merge the two of them and never be separated from him again. 

Ian doesn't mind. 

Because he’s missed her, _fuck_ has he missed her. He missed the way she would smile up at him toothily and hold her arms up to be picked up, he missed her voice babbling nonsense, he missed the way how whatever he would be holding in his hands would immediately become the most interesting thing to her, the way she smelled, her eyes that look so much like Mickey’s, the way she would cling to him, like she’s doing now. 

He’s never going to leave her again. Sure, it had been a month, but a month had turned out to be way too long for any of them to cope, as it turns out. 

He tells Mickey his stories, telling him how the army was boring and hard at the same time, how he didn’t like the other guys, how only being able to hear Mickey over the phone got old quickly, how he missed him so much he woke up in the middle of the night and just _had_ to go back to him or else he knew he’d die. 

Mickey looks horrified when he tells him he tried to steal a helicopter and shows him the scar he got from it. 

“You fucking did _what_ now?”

“I didn’t even lift off!” Ian says quickly. “I just started the blades.”

“You thought you were going to steal a fucking helicopter and fly it all the way back to Chicago?”

Ian shrugged. It had seemed like a fine idea at the time. He had just wanted to get back to Mickey and Aileen as soon as possible. Mickey’s face splits into a grin, and he shakes his head slowly. “Jesus Chirst, Gallagher.”

Ian missed the way Mickey would say his last name, rolling it off his tongue, completing it with that shit-eating grin that made tingles race down his spine. He loops an arm around Mickey’s shoulders and tugs him in for another kiss, slotting their lips together, and Ian’s missed this, too- the way their lips fit together so perfectly, as if they were made for each other. Maybe they are. 

Aileen takes that moment to start whining, pouting and staring up at them with puppy eyes while she grabs both of their chins, trying to pry them apart. 

They break apart, and Ian can’t help but laugh. “Still don’t like us kissing, huh, princess?” he coos down at her, running a hand through her longer hair. 

“Pa!” Aileen chirps, clapping her hands together. She wiggles on his lap, like she wants to be let down, and he picks her up by her armpits and sets her on the carpet on her feet. She toddles over to where her toys are laid out, squatting down to grab a little plastic farmer figurine and going back over to Ian, pressing it into his hands and babbling. 

Ian’s heart swells, and he realizes it was fucking stupid to go to the army in the first place. He’s missed Aileen so much, it’s not even okay. 

He takes the toy from Aileen and makes the farmer walk across his knee, to which Aileen chases after him with her hand, her tongue sticking out of her bottom lip and wetting her chin. She eventually grabs the toy, taking it from him with a triumphant “Ah!” then walks away, waving her arms excitedly. 

Mickey leans up against Ian then, letting out a sigh. “I really fucking missed you, man,” he says. 

Ian wraps an arm around his boyfriend, playing with the short hairs on the nape of his neck. 

“Miss you too,” he says back. “You look good.”

Mickey chuckled. “Yeah, uh, Svetlana gave me a haircut. Forced me to sit down and then chopped off the bottom half.”

Ian hums, stilling running his hands through his hair. “Where is she right now? Work?”

“Nah, she doesn't work anymore.”

Ian’s hand stills. “What?”

“Yeah, her boss was underpaying her, so I, uh, kinda emancipated her and the rest of the girls. They’re crashing here now, but I’ve found them a place above the Alibi 'cause the old guy who used to live there is dead now. Only we can’t quite move them in yet because Kev says the sidewalk outside the Alibi is torn up and business is real slow.”

Ian lets out a laugh. So that’s what Mickey’s been up to after he left. “Well,” he says then. “You’re their pimp now?”

Mickey thinks about that for a second, then scoffs. “Jesus, I guess I am.”

Ian didn’t realize how much he missed the Milkovich house, with it’s strange layout and weird room shapes, the scarves draped from the ceiling where they’re stapled in, giving the whole house a cozy, muffled feel. He’s even missed the perpetual clutter around the house, which is somehow even more so than the Gallagher’s. He can see the evidence of the house suddenly taking in more occupants- blankets bundled up on couches, an extra mattress in Svetlana and Colin’s room (apparently they’re _still_ banging), tons of dishes in the sink. 

He’s especially missed his and Mickey’s bed, with its cozy blankets that smell like the two of them and its queen size and relatively smooth mattress. He crashes when Mickey puts Aileen down for her nap, sprawling out on top of the blankets and shoving his face in Mickey’s pillow, inhaling the scent he’s missed so much. Hitchhiking from Kentucky had been really fucking exhausted, and the two sleepless nights he had are finally cathing up with him. 

He wakes up more than an hour later, feeling much more well-rested, and stretches out on the bed, yawning. It’s almost dark outside, but it’s only 4 in the afternoon, thanks to the days being so much shorter in winter. He can hear voices in the kitchen, and gets to his feet, stretching to pop his spine. 

Aileen’s awake, standing up in her crib and grabbing onto the rails, so he picks her up and places her down on the floor, holding her hand as she walks slowly. She’s gotten so much more coordinated since he’s been gone, and that was only 5 weeks. He doesn't want to know what he would’ve missed if he had been gone for 6 months at a time. 

Mandy’s back from working at the diner, and as soon as she sees him she barrels into him, wrapping him up with her arms. 

“I missed you, you asshole,” she says, pulling back and punching him in the arm. “What the fuck, Mickey says you stole a helicopter?”

“ _Tried_ to steal,” he corrects. “When that didn’t work out, I hitchhiked back here.”

Mandy smacks the side of his head and he ducks, grinning. He’s missed Mickey and Aileen, sure, but he sure as hell missed Mandy as well. 

“God, you’re like a fucking war criminal now,” she says. “Gonna have to go undercover or something.”

Ian didn’t think of that. He supposes he is though, going AWOL on the army is a pretty big deal, as he did sign up for 6 year on-and-off, but if he hides out in the Milkovich house all the time, the army shouldn't find him, right? He can be careful. And if they catch him, he can just tell him he changed his mind and missed his family and they’ll understand, right? 

Mickey doesn’t think so. 

“This is serious shit, Ian,” he says when they’re lying together in bed that night. “You could get in a whole lot of trouble.”

Ian just rolls his eyes. Mickey needs to trust him- he knows what he’s doing. “I’ll be fine,” he reassures him. “Can’t say the same for your ass.” He throws his boyfriend a grin. He’s so fucking horny. It’s been over a month since the last time he’s been with Mickey, and he’s kept his promise to not fuck other guys. He’s getting pretty tired of his hand. 

Mickey, though, worries his bottom teeth with his lip. “Aileen’s right over there, man,” he says, gesturing to her crib. 

“Yeah, but she’s asleep,” Ian replies. He’s ready to go, right _now._ He grabs a blanket off their bed and throws it over her crib, shielding them from her view. “See? If we keep quiet, she won’t have a clue what we’re doing.”

It’s like coming home again, being inside Mickey. As soon as his cock is enveloped in his boyfriend's warmth, he feels comforted, like this is where he belongs. Nothing but _Mickey_ overwhelms his senses, from the feeling is his skin against Ian’s, to the muscular planes of his back flexing underneath him, to the way he skin tastes when Ian presses open-mouthed kisses to the back of his neck, to the way his quiet but quick breaths reach Ian’s ears as Mickey tries to keep quiet in a house full of people. 

Regardless, Ian would like it a whole lot fucking better if they didn’t have to use a condom, but money is really fucking tight, according to Mickey, espically now that they won’t be getting his monthly check from the army, so there’s no way they can afford another baby. 

He jerks Mickey off when he’s close, and his boyfriend just lies there and lets Ian have his way with him, and that does it for Ian like nothing else, the fact that Mickey is so ready to just let Ian take care of him so completely. He comes in the condom, and a second later, Mickey spills out into his hand. 

Ian slides out of Mickey and collapses on the other side of him. The tissues are too far away, so he brings his cum-coated hand up to his lips and licks it clean, relishing in the _taste_ of Mickey that he’s missed. 

Mickey watches him, his eyes darkening. “Fuck, Ian,” he breathes out, and Ian throws a grin back at him. 

He rolls the condom off and ties it off, throwing it carelessly on the floor, then turns on his side to stare at Mickey. 

“What?” his boyfriend says, a smirk playing on his lips. 

“Nothing,” Ian responds. “I just missed you.”

“Missed you too,” Mickey replies, his eyes flicking down to Ian’s lips. Ian leans forward and presses their lips together, sighing into the kiss. He’s missed this too. Mickey deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue into Ian’s mouth, running it along his teeth, and Ian feels his spent cock twitch with interest. He’s missed Mickey so fucking much that he’s ready to go again, even less than 5 minutes after the first time. 

He grasps Mickey’s shoulders and rolls them over so he’s on top, his hips framing Mickey’s, and breaks their lips apart, trailing kisses down his throat. Mickey tilts his head back, giving Ian more access. Ian moves down, passing his tongue over Mickey’s right nipple, then the left one, which causes Mickey to arch off the bed and gasp, a hand flying to his mouth as he tries to stifle his noises. 

His nipples are still puffy and sensitive from nursing, and Ian loves the reaction he can pull from him. He continues down, dipping his tongue into Mickey’s navel, burying his nose in his happy trail, but when he licks the tip of Mickey’s dick, he’s stopped.

“Ian- wait,” Mickey says quickly, grabbing onto his hair to steady his head. “I don’t think I can come again.” 

Ian tilts his head and glances up at his boyfriend. He’s fully hard himself, ready to go again. Mickey’s right, though- his dick is twitching weakly against his leg, still soft for the most part. 

“Oh,” he says, because he’s still so fucking horny. Mickey grins at him, then all of a sudden, sits up and grabs Ian, flipping them over so that he’s on top. 

“Doesn’t mean I can’t still get _you_ off, Mr. Pornstar-Stamina,” Mickey hums, letting his fingers trace down Ian’s body, and _oh._ He likes that. 

Mickey swallows him down, hollowing out his cheeks and swirling his tongue around his tip, and Ian thinks it’s the best blowjob he’s ever had. Mickey deepthroats him once, but gags and pulls back, and Ian gets even more spurred on when Mickey doesn’t retch horribly. Progress. 

He comes down Mickeys’ throat rather quickly, and Mickey swallows everything down, and _that’s_ the hottest thing Ian’s ever seen. He’s amazed they’ve managed to keep as quiet as they have. 

Mickey curls up next to him afterwards, and Ian throws an arm lazily over his waist, and he misses this, too, the closeness they’re able to get at night, when no one else is watching. 

If he presses a kiss to Mickey’s forehead before he falls asleep, and Mickey smiles in his sleep, that’s nobody’s business but their own. 

***

When Mickey wakes up the next morning, he’s convinced he’s dreamed Ian coming back. But then a body shifts behind him, and he hears Ian sigh, and all his doubts are erased. 

The house is busy in the morning, with the Russian whores and Colin (who’s apparently been getting free blowjobs) and Mandy and Kenyatta. Ian doesn't help the clutter, but no way in hell would Mickey ever want him to go away again. 

Ian doesn’t seem to want to leave Aileen’s side for one second- he offers to change her diaper and feed her instead of Mickey, and plays with her after breakfast, before her midmorning nap. Mickey thinks it’s really fucking cute, the way Ian gets the biggest heart eyes he’s ever seen, staring down at their daughter with a goofy smile. 

Content that Ian is fine playing with Aileen by himself for a while, Mickey grabs a cigarette and goes out to the front porch, leaning up against the post and taking a drag. The stress from Ian leaving had led him to crave a nicotine hit more, and he had found himself taking smoke breaks outside more often than he ever had since he had Aileen. He’d been trying to cut back with an infant in the house, and had even gone cold turkey when he was pregnant, so it should send up a few red flags when he had started going through up to half a dozen cigarettes daily. 

Now that Ian’s back, however, he knows a lot of unneeded stress will be lifted from his shoulders, and he should work on cutting back. Ian’s already told him he quit during his time in the army, because he saw some old general with lung disease from a lifetime of smoking, and immediately decided to stop. At least that’s one less lungful of smoke that Aileen doesn’t have to grow up around, although the addition of the whores has kind of cancelled that out. They smoke more than Mickey’s uncles combined, and just glare daggers at him when he asks them to take it outside, feigning ignorance to english even as he waves his hand at their cigarettes and then points to the back door. 

He raises the cigarette to his lips and takes another drag, letting the smoke warm his body before he blows it out, watching as it’s caught by the late January wind and swept away. 

“Hey.”

Someone’s on the sidewalk- the least person that he’d expect. 

Lip Gallagher. 

“Aren’t you at college?” he asks him, taking another hit. 

“Well, I, uh, I was, but now I’m back,” Lip replies. 

“Mandy ain’t here,” Mickey tells him, glancing away. That’s true- she had left for work already, but not before placing the most disgusting kiss ever on Kenyatta’s lips. 

“Well that’s good, because I came to talk to you.”

Mickey looks back at him. Lip rests his hands on the fence and squints up at him. 

“The fuck you want?” Mickey fires at him. Can’t he just take a smoke in peace? 

“You heard anything from Ian?” Lip asks. 

Mickey freezes. It’s one thing for Debbie to pop over on her way to and from school to ask about Ian, but it’s another thing for Lip to come all the way back from college, asking about his brother who he thinks is still in the army. 

So that must mean that he doesn’t think he’s in the army anymore. Mickey knows going AWOL on the army is a military crime, and he’s been wary since yesterday that MPs will show up at the house and demand Ian. Lip must know something, or have been visited by the army, or some shit. 

So Mickey plays dumb. He shrugs and shakes his head. “No.” Then glance away, trying not to look Lip in the eyes in case he can see right through him. 

Of course that’s when Ian decides to fucking open the front door, poke his head out into the cold and say, “Mick, Aileen’s been calling you for like the past 5 minutes. I guess I’m no fun anymore.” The last word dies in his throat as he spies his brother, and a grin splits across his face. “Lip!” he calls, waving. “Good to see you, man! Wanna come in?”

Lip glances at Mickey, who shrugs and throws his burnt out cigarette into the grass. Oh well. Secret’s out. 

Lip follows them into the house, tugging off his scarf as Ian shuts the door behind him, then pulls him into a hug. 

“God, it is so good to see you again,” he says, grinning. “I missed you.”

Lip nods. “Yeah, Ian, uh, what are you doing back?”

Ian shrugs, and Mickey moves over to Aileen, who holds her hands up to him with a “Da!” He sits on the couch next to her, and she scrambles to her feet, walking unsteadily over and clinging to the couch next to his knee. 

“The army wasn’t fun anymore,” Ian explains. “Too many rules. Couldn’t stand being away from everyone, you know?”

“Ian, you ran away from the army,” Lip says slowly. “You can’t do that.”

Mickey shrugs. “Well, he just did.” Lip throws a glare his way, and he shoots him one back. Lip has always been his least favorite Gallagher- he’s too fucking cocky, thinks he’s higher than everyone else just because he goes to some prissy college, and he’s always hated Mickey, so Mickey hates him right fucking back. 

Just then, the door to Svetlana’s room bangs open and two Russian prostitutes storm out, arguing to each other, their voices high and shrill. One of them is topless, her tits swinging out for the whole world to see. She stops over to the couch and grabs a ratty t-shirt that’s lying on the arm, then whirls around, huffs at Lip, who’s staring at her, and stomps back over to the other girl. They continue their conversation and disappear back into the room, slamming the door behind them. 

Lip raises an eyebrow at the door, then sighs. “Look, some army MPs came by looking for you at my college. They want to arrest you for going AWOL, stealing government property.”

Ian shrugs. “Probably,” he says, then grabs Aileen’s lion stuffed animal and makes it dance in front of her. 

“No, hey, did you hear me?” Lip says, sounding desperate as he takes a step closer. “They say you stole a helicopter.”

Ian laughs at that, booping Aileen on the head with the nose of the stuffed lion. “That’s hilarious,” he chuckles, and Mickey has to smile at the way he just doesn't give two shits. “I mean, I didn’t steal anything, I just started the rotors.” 

Lip sighs. “Look, they already went to the Gallagher house too, I suspect they’ll come here soon. Just, look out for yourself, okay?” 

Ian waves him off, now holding the stuffed animal so Aileen has to chase after it. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says absentmindedly. 

Mickey glances over at Lip and raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms. Lip gets the message to get the fuck out of his house and makes his way back over to the door. Mickey sees him out, but Lip turns around while he’s still standing in the door frame. 

“Does he seem… different to you?” Lip asks in a low tone. 

Mickey glares at him. “No,” he snaps, shutting the door as soon as Lip steps fully outside. 

But then he turns and looks at Ian, who’s still playing with Aileen. He had been so happy that Ian had come back, he didn’t even think about the consequences, or how Ian’s mood had been slightly changed. Like he didn’t give two fucks about the fact that he had gone AWOL on the army, a literal fucking crime. Ian had always been a rule follower, a sucker for authority, that it doesn’t match up to Mickey. 

He takes his place back on the couch, watching as Ian slips a puppet cow on his hand, making it move and talking in a funny voice to Aileen. She loves it, giggling and clapping her hands together. 

“You’ll be careful, though, won’t you?” Mickey says. “If the MPs come around?”

Ian pauses then, and turns to him, his face spreading in a soft smile. “Of course I will, Mick,” he says, and Mickey believes him. 

They’re eating a dinner of popcorn and Fruit Loops later that evening, with the girls gathered around the table, playing cards. Ian’s gotten along with them surprisingly well. Mickey doesn’t know how he fucking does it, but he’s somehow managed to get them to not yell at him every 5 seconds. Mickey’s going back to the table after getting some more milk from the fridge when he hears the unmistakable sound of something heavy and glass breaking, then someone screaming. 

The door to Mandy’s room bursts open, and one of the girls runs out, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and a pair of panties, followed by Kenyatta, who’s completely naked. 

He runs past Mickey, shoving him, hard, and Mickey whirls around, surprised. 

“Ey, you mind not swinging that shit around?!” he yells to Kenyatta’s naked back as he hightails it into the bathroom and slams the door. “You’re gonna fucking hurt somebody!” 

Mandy appears next to him then, looking murderous and holding a hammer. She swings around and jabs it at Mickey’s chest, and he jumps back, holding his hands up.

“This is your fault!” Mandy accuses. 

“Mine?”

“Hey, woah,” Ian says, holding an apple slice halfway to Aileen’s mouth. “Let’s not bash anyone’s brains in, okay?”

“I’m practically tripping over these bitches!” Mandy yells, guestering to the girls with the hammer. “I want them gone, now! I was gone 10 fucking minutes!” She stomps off in the direction of the bathroom to go yell at Kenyatta, and Mickey has a pretty good idea of what happened. 

He scratches the back of his head, then turns to Ian, who shrugs. 

Mickey agrees with Mandy. They’ve been here 5 days, and that’s 5 days too long. The house just isn’t designed to hold nearly a dozen people. And the amount of hot water and electricity they’re using is starting to get ridiculous. 

So he takes out his phone and calls Kev. 

“Yo, it’s Mickey, you in or out?” he demands as soon as Kev picks up. 

“I told you, I’m in,” Kev responds, talking in an undertone. “I’m just not looking forward to discussing it with my wife. I’ll call you back.” Then he hangs up. Mickey grits his teeth and pockets his phone, sitting down next to Ian with a huff. 

“Dada!” Aileen chirps, making grabby hands at her. 

“Yeah, hi, sweetheart,” Mickey says, reaching out and letting her grab onto his finger. 

“He gonna do it?” Ian asks him. 

“Says he needs to talk to V first,” Mickey responds, grabbing one of Aileen’s cut-up chicken nuggets that she's left lying on her tray and holding it up to her, trying to get her to eat it. 

“Shit, we’ll see how that goes,” Ian responds. 

Surprisingly, V says yes. Kev calls him early the next morning, waking him up at the ass crack of dawn, and they agree to meet on Sunday. Svetlana demands to be brought along, and Mickey just rolls his eyes and lets her come. He’s done fighting with angry Russian women. 

He takes Aileen, as well, because Ian isn’t going to stay at home. They had discussed it, and they both agree that now that Ian isn’t going to be paid by the army, he should start looking for a job. Preferably one that doesn’t do extensive background checks. 

So while Mickey, Svetlana, and Aileen take a trip down to the Alibi, Ian sets out with a scarf, a hat, and glasses, in case any MPs are hanging around. They haven’t come by the house yet, but Mickey knows they might any minute. 

As soon as Kev had given him the green light, Mickey had gone up to survey the apartment. It’s big, but rather dirty, but he supposes that the girls have worked in worse conditions. He grabs some mattresses and a shit ton of wet wipes, then brings Kev up to see it on Sunday. 

“Where are the massage tables?” is the first thing he asks. 

“Hey, you know how much those things cost?” Mickey fires back. They’re fucking expensive, and he figures they could just go without. “Look at this, Salvation Army. 10 bucks each.” He gestures to the mattresses he had bought and hikes Aileen further up on his hip, and she plays with his ear, babbling. “All we gotta do is hang some sheets, divide the space up.”

“Yeah, what about the cleanup?” Kev asks. 

“What about it?”

“Isn’t there gonna be jizz all over the floor?”

Mickey sets Aileen down from where he had placed her on his hip, and she immediately toddles over to the stack of supplies. 

“You’re overthinking this, man. Look, we got everything we need. Lube, Clorax, all in bulk.” Aileen tries to pick up one of the packages of lube, and he directs her away from it, distracting her with a toy he had brought for this exact purpose. 

Kev thinks about that for a moment. “How much we charge?”

“50 bucks, girls get 17,” he responds. 

That gets Svetlana’s attention, and she glances over at him from where she was staring in disgust at the state of the walls. “17? Same as Sasha?” she demands. “At least over there, we have walls, we have tables.”

“Yeah, and we learned a valuable lesson,” he shoots back at her. “Anyone can jerk a cock. I jerk mine and my boyfriend’s, he jerks his. Learn a unique skill or shut the fuck up.” 17 is only temporary, until business takes off and they can start upping the girls’ pay. 

Svetlana doesn’t like that, and throws her hands up, mumbling something in Russian, then turns around and sees herself out. 

“No one knows what the fuck you’re saying,” Mickey calls after her. 

They open for business the very next day, but they only get 3 customers, because of the stupid fucking construction that’s still going on outside of the Alibi. Mickey complains about it to Ian later, who still is having trouble finding a job, then gets fucked hard later, and maybe that makes him feel a little better, but not a whole lot. 

The next day, however, Stan’s daughter-son pops by the Alibi with his tennis buddies, threatening to beat the shit out of Kev for not paying him the money he promised for the bar. So Kev, in which is probably the most brilliant thing he’s ever done in his fucking life, Mickey thinks, offers rub n’ tug service to the guys instead. And they take it. 

They make $450, $100 of which Kev gives to Mickey, and the rest goes to Stan’s son, but it’s still good publicity. The tennis fuckers will tell their friends, and Mickey’s optimistic that in a few days, business will be blooming. 

Kev pours Mickey a shot later, and takes one for himself, saying, “You can keep a man down, but you can never keep him from getting it up.” They drink to that. 

***

Mickey was right- there’s no places hiring around in their neighborhood. Ian heads out on Sunday, while Mickey and Aileen are at the Alibi, but after 40 minutes of aimless walking, he has to admit- he’s not going to find a job close to home. 

So he hunches his shoulders up to bury his chin deeper down into his coat and heads to the L, taking a random line that heads North. He gets off on Lincoln Park, because there’s always a shit ton of overworked restaurants and coffee shops that are always hiring. 

He’s only gone half an hour north, yet there’s towering skyscrapers made of glass and brick buildings with huge windows, chain shops and shiny cars. The streets are wide and paved smoothly, and Ian doesn’t spy a single deal on the side of the street. He brushes past a woman wearing a heavy parka and designer sunglasses, and her boots look more expensive than Aileen’s entire wardrobe. He passes by a store front with windows so shiny he can see his reflection. He looks stupidly out of place- his fingerless gloves, his plaid, multicolor scarf and too big jacket with its holes. He looks like a homeless man compared to the Northsiders. 

He ducks into some place called Hops & Curds with a giant _Help wanted!_ sign in the window, and immediately realizes it’s a place for hipsters. Almost every single man in there has a man bun. Some woman with pink hair comes up to him and asks him why he’s there with a disgusted look on her face, like she actually believes he’s the homeless man he feels like. 

“Uh, your sign said help wanted?” Ian says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. 

She glances him up and down, then leads him to the bar, where the restaurant manager is behind, pouring some sparkling green drink into a glass. 

The manager tells him to leave his name and number, looking like he wants him to get the fuck out of his restruant as soon as possible. Ian does, because he really doesn’t want to pick a fight with a Northsider right now. Mickey would want to, but he’s actually trying to get a really good fucking job and not a reputation. 

Everyone’s staring at him weirdly, so he gets the fuck out of there. He walks a couple more blocks, then sees something that catches his attention. 

It’s a nondescript door in the row of buildings, the same color as the brick walls, so that if you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t see it. There’s a white sign on the door that looks professionally made, with black letters that read _Bartenders Wanted._ As Ian steps closer to the door, he can make out _The White Swallow_ in silver letter the same font as the sign. It’s a club, a gay one, judging by the joined mars symbols next to the name. And it’s hiring. 

His curiosity piques, and he tries to the handle of the door. It’s unlocked, and he slips inside, taking a moment for his eyes to get used to the low level of light. The door leads into a hallway with black walls and a black carpet and lights lining the edge where the walls meet the floor. The hallway is long and ends in a flight of stairs that twists around the corner. 

Ian gets the vague feeling that the staircase is going to end in some shady garage and he’s going to get jumped, but he walks down it anyway, and is not disappointed by the view at the bottom. 

The staircase opens into a huge club, with two different bars, one immediately to the right, in front of a huge wall plastered with round orbs of light, the second one being in the center of the club, large and circular, with a platform rising up in the center and iron rails closing it in. There’s light displays all over the place, making his eyes hurt, and he spies the dance floor just beyond the second bar, completely empty as its afternoon on a Sunday. 

There’s only a few guys loitering about, mostly by the bars, holding drinks in their hands and talking at respectable distances from each other, like they’re on a business trip rather than at a gay club. 

Ian spies the bartender, wearing a sparkly, silver tank top, and makes his way over to him, leaning on the bar to be heard over the loud, bassy song that’s playing. 

“You guys are hiring?” he practically shouts. 

“That’s right,” the bartender responds, grabbing a rag and wiping off the counter of the bar. “Ever since Kevin quit because his sugar daddy got a promotion and they didn’t need the money anymore, and then Aaron and Jake got fired for trying to roofie every single bear who came in here.”

“Um… okay,” Ian says, not exactly knowing what the fuck the guy just said. 

“What, you looking to apply?” the guy asks, throwing his rag behind him and turning back towards Ian, who nods. “I’ll grab Adam for you. Hang tight right there.”

Ian takes a seat on one of the stools, drumming his fingers against the table top as he waits. He can feel eyes in the back of his head and glances behind him. Some old, overweight man wearing a suit and tie like it’s a funeral is staring at him. He raises an eyebrow and smirks in a way that makes him look like the Joker, so Ian shoots him a glare and turns back around. 

The bartender reappears from somewhere in the back, this time accompanied by someone else. He’s tall and thin, making his fuzzy hair and hipster beard look out of proportion. 

“Well, you weren’t kidding when you said he looked young,” he says when he approaches Ian, and holds out a hand for him to shake. Ian grasps it. “I’m Adam,” he continues. “The manager here. How old are you?”

“22,” Ian lies easily. “But I’ve always been told I look young.”

Adam gives him a once-over and raises his eyebrows. “Good. We need fresh meat. Sorry Dan, but I’ve been getting reports that you’re looking a little too generic as of late. Maybe ease up on that eyebrow plucking?”

The bartender, Dan, pouts and crosses his arms. Ian shifts uncomfortably. 

“Anyway,” Adam says. “You have any experience with bartending?”

“Not a whole lot, but I know all the types of liquor and shit,” Ian says. That’s true. The summer before he started working at the Kash N’ Grab, he would clean up at the Alibi for Kev, and whenever business was slow, Kev would go over all the bottles of alcohol and what to mix with what to make various types of drinks. It’s always amazed Ian how trigonometry could never stick in his brain, but useless liquor knowledge from when he was 13 can. 

“Hmm. Well, we can always train you,” Adam says. Then he narrows his eyes and reaches out, grabbing onto Ian’s bicep and squeezes, hard. Ian jumps. He wasn’t expecting that. “You’re just a little too strong. If you wanna work here, you’re gonna have to ease up on those curls. Men come here for twinks, not jocks.”

Ian blinks. “Okay…”

“And we’ll need to give you a stage name. We had an incident last year with identity theft, and now boys, no matter if they’re bartending or dancing, need to have fake names. Hell, Dan here isn’t even really named Dan.” He jerks a thumb at the other guy, who gives Ian a wave with his fingers. 

“Take your pick of Curtis, Jake- that one’s free since the last Jake just got fired-, and Stu.”

Ian recoils. Well, he certainly isn’t going to be called _Stu,_ and he doesn’t want to be named after some rapist, so he chooses Curtis. It sounds a lot like Clayton anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get used to. 

“Great,” Adam says, clapping his hands together. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow for training? Let’s say around 11? It’ll either be with Dan here, or Carter, who’s a big chocolate god with ears that stick out, so recognizable, so be on the lookout for either of them.”

“I’m hired?” Ian asks in disbelief. That seemed way too fucking easy. 

Adam shrugs. “Desperate times call for desperate measure, Curtis. Leave your phone number with us, and we’ll call you a few days after your training is done to get you your first shift.”

“Holy fuck,” Ian blurts out. “Thank you.” He sticks out his hand, and he and Adam shake again, then Adam waves him off. 

“Now get out of here. I have work to do. Don’t forget- tomorrow, 11 a.m.!”

Ian’s in a trance on the ride home. That was way too fucking easy. It wasn’t even a proper interview, the manager just asked him if he had any experience, gave him a stage name, and then hired him on the spot. And he knows bartending makes good money, between the paycheck and the tips, so he’s fucking excited. Not to mention he’ll most likely be hired at night, which means he’ll be free during the days and therefore will be able to watch Aileen while Mickey’s at work. 

Ian somehow manages to keep the new bottled inside of him until after dinner and Aileen’s bedtime ( _god,_ it feels to fucking good to read to her again), until he and Mickey are relaxing in front of the TV, both with beer in their hands, watching some old 80s show. 

Colin’s on a run with some buddies and probably won’t be back for another day, and Mandy and Kenyatta are in their room, probably fucking. Mickey had yelled at the girls to get the fuck out of there, and they had, disappearing into Svetlana’s room, after laughing at him in Russian. Ian’s glad that Mickey’s managed to clear out the living room just for themselves. 

“So, uh, the Rub N’ Tug will be open tomorrow,” Mickey says all of a sudden, after Ian had slung an arm over the back of the couch and he had snuggled up against his side. 

Ian glances down at him. “Shit, really?” He had been wondering how he was going to bring up the topic of him getting a job, but it looked like Mickey had done that for him. 

“Yeah, so we should be able to bring in some decent money with it.”

“I got a job today too.”

The look on Mickey’s face is definitely worth it. He grins, his eyes lighting up. “Holy fuck, Ian, what? Where?”

“It’s bartending,” Ian begins, scanning his boyfriend’s face. Mickey doesn’t seem to react at first, so he keeps going. “At a club called the White Swallow.”

Mickey scoffs. “The White Swallow? Not very subtle, is it?”

“Hmm, not really. It’s a- it’s a gay club.” It comes out like a question. 

Mickey pauses, then turns to him slowly. “So you’re telling me that you went out and got a job at a fucking gay club?” He looks horrified, almost disgusted, with Ian, and Ian wants to bring his smile back again.

“It’s bartending, it’s not like I’ll be dancing! It pays good money, plus tips! _And_ I’ll work nights, so I’ll be able to watch Aileen during the day when you’re at the Rub N’ Tug.”

Mickey stares at him. “Do I need to put a fucking collar on you? _Property of Mickey Milkovich,_ or some shit? Ian, do you know how fucking hit on you’re going to get? Greasy old men are going to try and shove their disgusting hands down your fucking pants!” 

“Or not, because I’ll be behind the bar,” Ian counters. “Really, Kev taught me how to mix drinks and whatever, and I’ll make some really good money. So much more than I could ever make at the Kash N’ Grab.”

Ian can see in how his shoulders slump that Mickey’s given up. “Jesus christ, Gallagher,” he sighs. “A fucking bartender?”

Ian grins at him. “I’ll have to wear some glittery tank top- I bet I’ll look hot.”

“No, I want you to look the opposite of hot. Ugly.”

Ian tilts his head, pretending to think. “Isn’t the opposite of hot cold?”

Mickey shoves at his shoulder, nearly spilling his beer, and then _finally,_ it’s his grin again, spreading across his face, the bottoms of his teeth poking out. 

“A fucking bartender, huh?”

“A fucking bartender,” Ian agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus we introduce jealous Mickey once again.  
> Look for the next chapter on Tuesday!  
> Side note: I've been hearing mixed things about Fiona's HOS and now I don't know what to think.


	4. Iron City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright,” he says eventually. “Look, we’ll be there first thing tomorrow, okay?”  
> He hangs up and tosses his phone to the side, then turns to Mickey, his mouth open.   
> “Who the fuck was that?” Mickey demands.  
> “That was Lip,” Ian tells him. “Liam’s in the hospital. Overdosed on some coke Fiona left out.”  
> 4.06

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: mentions of drug use.

When Mickey’s got his lips around Ian’s dick and his ass wrapped around his tongue, he wonders why they’ve never done this before. He’s wrapped up in _Ian_ from both ends, his mouth stuffed with his cock, being fucked with his tongue and stretched with his fingers, and it’s making his thighs and arms shake and sweat to pool in the small of his back. 

Ian wiggles a second finger in between his index finger and tongue, and fucking _pulls_ on Mickey’s rim, causing him to jerk forward, shoving Ian’s dick further down his mouth. Ian moans at that, the sound vibrating up Mickey’s spine. 

That only spurs him on more, hollowing his cheek around his boyfriend’s dick, twisting his hand around the part he can’t fit in his mouth, savoring the weight against his tongue, the ache in his jaw. If you were to tell him 2 years ago he loved sucking Ian Gallagher’s dick, he would’ve kneed you in the balls. 

Now, though, he pulls off and ducks his head down further, licking down the heavy vein that always pops out as soon as Ian gets the slightest bit hard, to curl his tongue around the base of Ian’s length, as far as it can go, which isn’t very far. 

Ian takes the opportunity to slide his tongue out of Mickey’s ass, and Mickey feels cold air hit where the warm, wet muscle just was. 

“Fuck,” Ian groans. “You’re so good at that.”

Mickey just hums against him, sucking one of his balls into his mouth, a little awkwardly as he’s currently upside down. Ian curses then, and shoves yet another finger into his hole. Mickey moans around the stretch, pushing his ass backwards and tilting his hips down, needing _more_ , and goes to work on the other one. 

“Christ,” Ian pants, then all of a sudden, a sharp pain explodes from a spot on his left ass cheek, and he jerks forward. 

“Fuck, what the hell?!” Mickey shouts as Ian chuckles behind him. That motherfucker _bit_ his fucking ass cheek. Ian shushes him, raising a hand to smooth over the bite mark. 

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “Just had to.”

“Right,” Mickey snaps, wrapping a hand around Ian’s dick and jerking him off lazily. Ian’s hips twitch, and he spreads his legs a little more. “What if I bit your dick?”

“Oh, fuck, Mick, it’s not the same,” Ian huffs, then licks a stripe up Mickey’s crack and the whole situation is forgotten. 

Mickey’s quite proud of himself when he manages to fit more of Ian in his mouth than ever before, the head of his dick just barely tickling the back of his throat. He’s not quite as deep as Mickey wishes he were, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before he’s able to bury his face in Ian’s pubes, like Ian can do when he’s giving him a blow job. 

It’s not his fault Ian’s so fucking _big._

The pads of Ian’s fingers rub against his prostate head one, and hot pleasure tingles throughout his body, and he gasps out. Ian chuckles against his ass, licking where his fingers disappear into Mickey’s body, and Mickey can feel that he’s getting close, so close, so he sucks a little bit harder on Ian’s dick and rolls his ball in his hand. 

“Fuck, Mick,” Ian groans against his rim, and the deep gravelly lowness of his voice does it for him. He comes with a moan, all over Ian’s chest, no doubt leaving him one hell of a mess to clean up. 

Ian swears again, and explodes in his mouth, leaving Mickey struggling to swallow him down. He comes for what seems like _hours,_ and it makes Mickey almost want to go again, the way trails of cum leak out of the sides of his mouth because he can’t fit any more inside. 

Eventually, he pops off Ian’s dick and rolls off of him, resting his forehead on his arms and panting. 

“Jesus christ,” Ian groans, out of breath. “Why haven’t we done that before?”

Mickey manages a weak moan in response. All of his limbs feel like jelly, his thighs sore from holding himself up above Ian’s face, and his left bicep especially. Ian reaches a hand over and gently rubs his lower back, and Mickey can feel himself relaxing from his touch. 

“I’ll get a rag,” Ian says then, and the bed dips as he climbs off it and makes his way into the bathroom, leaving Mickey alone. 

He lets his eyes slide shut and basks in the afterglow of his orgasm. It seems like no matter how many times he and Ian have sex, they always manage to make it a thosuands times better each time. Ian returns with a warm washcloth, which he uses to wipe Mickey’s drying cum off his chest, then along Mickey’s sensitive rim, which makes him hiss. He runs his finger along the bitemark he left off his ass once he’s done, which causes a nice mixture of pleasure/pain to roll itself lazily through Mickey’s body. 

“Looks nice,” Ian comments. 

“Course you’d think so, kinky fucker,” Mickey mutters back. He’d like nothing more than to close his eyes and fall asleep, but they need to rescue Aileen from Mandy’s hold and put her to bed. So he rolls onto his feet, stretching, and grabs his pair of boxers from where Ian tosses them on the floor, tugging them up his legs. Ian tosses him a random shirt, and they dress quickly before they make their way into the living room. 

Mandy’s got Aileen on her lap, watching some movie with an ulgy, pale-ass guy.

“What the fuck are you watching?” Mickey asks as Ian picks up Aileen cooing to her and holding her high above his head, making her squeal. 

“Twilight,” Mandy replies, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl that’s balanced next to her. “Oh, shut up, it’s a classic,” she adds when Mickey makes a face. 

“Uh-huh, sure, just what I need, my kid dreaming about fucking vampires,” he says back. 

Mandy throws a piece of popcorn at him, which he ducks. “Fuck off, these are _hot_ vampires,” she states. 

“Well, she doesn’t need to be watching _hot_ vampires any less.”

Mandy shoots him the middle finger, and Ian chuckles, gently stroking Aileen’s head as she clings to his shirt and yawns. 

“Yeah, I bet you're tired, huh?” Mickey coos at her, walking over to them and gently rubbing her wrist with his thumb. “Aunt Mandy made you watch some boring ass movie.”

“Say goodnight to Mandy, Aileen,” Ian says, waving at Mandy. Sleepily, Aileen lifts her head from his chest and waves at Mandy, blinking slowly. 

“She looks half dead, man,” Mickey chuckles as she thunks her head heavily back against Ian’s chest. “Night, bitch,” he adds to Mandy as the family makes their way to their room. She sticks her tongue out at him. 

They get Aileen ready for bed quickly, because she’s about to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, bathing her, which she hates, and brushing her teeth with one of those weird-ass baby brushes, which she hates even more. Ian changes her into her sleeper while Mickey grabs some random book from the top of the stack they’ve been slowly collecting. 

Aileen fucking _loves_ books. She’s been getting more and more interested in them as they read to her, getting excited and clapping her hands. Mickey’s gone to a few neighborhood libraries, which are mainly used for drug trading, but he’s managed to grab a few baby books that have bright pictures and words about colors or animals or whatever. They’ve been reading those to her, trying to get her to sound out words. 

Ian reads to her tonight, while she drapes herself across Mickey, one leg thrown over his thigh, sucking on her pacifier. They don’t let her have the pacifier all hours of the day, as Mickey knows it can cause teeth problems, but they let her suck on it before bedtime or her naps to calm her down or whenever she gets fussy during the day for no reason. Mickey wraps his arm around her middle so she doesn't go sliding off his lap as Ian starts to read _Goodnight Moon_ that Mickey grabbed from the Gallagher house. 

Her breathing evens out by the time Ian’s finished reading, and her eyes have fluttered shut, so Ian gently picks her up, cradling her in the crook of his arm. He brings her over to her crib and as he lays her down, she whines out softly, “Nooo,” not wanting to be put down. 

Mickey chuckles, standing up and moving next to Ian. He grabs her blanket and gently tucks it around her shoulders, sliding the pacifier out of her mouth. 

“She’s so fucking perfect, Mick,” Ian whispers then, staring down at their daughter. Mickey wraps an arm lazily around his waist. 

“Yeah, she is,” he agrees. 

Ian snaps the lights off, and Mickey closes the door and hopes that she won’t wake up again. Last night, Aileen woke up at 2 a.m., whimpering and demanding to be held by Ian and Mickey. They had caved, because they had been going off of good sleep for the last 7 months, and suddenly reliving her newborn era had shocked them. Mickey had rocked her back to sleep, and Ian had stroked her head, and when they laid her back down in her crib, she didn’t wake up again until it was morning, so Mickey counted it a win. He had looked it up earlier this morning, and had found that apparently, toddlers began experiencing sleep regression after they turned 1. Mickey had nearly pitched a fit. They had such an easy baby, he was afraid they were jinxing themselves for toddler years. 

Mandy is still watching twilight as Mickey and Ian venture out into the living room and plop down next to her, Ian stealing some of her popcorn. 

“Where’s your boyfriend?” he asks. 

“Out drinking with his work buddies,” she responds, her eyes glued to the screen as Edward Cullen sparkles underneath the sunlight like a fag. 

“Good,” Mickey responds. He hopes he stays there. He doesn’t like Kenyatta- he’s too quiet and has mean little eyes, always standing so tense like he’s going to suddenly flip out any second. Not to mention he cheated on Mandy with the dark-haired Russian whore. But Mandy says they’re “cool” now, if cool means having sex around the clock. 

Mickey doesn't know how he does it, but he sits through the whole fucking movie with Mandy. Maybe it has something to do with Ian’s arm that’s thrown across his shoulders, pulling him into his warm body. 

As the credits roll, Ian yawns widely, covering it with his hand.

“I’m beat,” he declares. “I got to get a good night’s sleep for my shift tomorrow.” He starts bartending at the White Swallow tomorrow, Thursday, night, from 8 p.m. to fucking 2 in the morning. Mickey has no idea how he’s supposed to sleep on his own until then. 

“You excited to be shaking your ass for a bunch of old, white men?” Mandy asks, smirking. 

“I won't be _shaking my ass,_ ” Ian says back at her, shoving her playfully. “I’m bartending. There’s a difference.”

“Right, sorry, you just gotta listen to them bitch about their problems with their wives.”

“Yeah, good fucking luck with that, man, I could never stand that,” Mickey adds. Ian just hums, then stands up and stretches. 

“Well, we’re gonna go to bed, Mands, see you in the morning, yeah?”

They wake up in the middle of the night again, though this time, it’s not from Aileen not being able to sleep, but from Ian’s phone ringing. 

“Hello?” he mumbles when he answers it. Mickey lets out a groan and buries his head in his pillow. Is he ever going to get a good night’s sleep again?  
“You’re where?” Ian says, rubbing his eyes. Then, all of a sudden, he shoots up, causing Mickey, who was resting his hand on his bicep, to jerk back. “She what?”

“What happened?” Mickey asks, frowning at Ian in the dark. He sounds worried, tense. 

“Fuck, is he alright?”

“Ian. What’s going on?” Mickey presses, moving closer to Ian as if he can hear the person on the other line better.

Ian runs a hand through his hair and lets out a breathy “Shit…” 

“Alright,” he says eventually. “Look, we’ll be there first thing tomorrow, okay?”

He hangs up and tosses his phone to the side, then turns to Mickey, his mouth open. 

“Who the fuck was that?” Mickey demands, hating how he doesn’t have a fucking clue what’s going on. 

“That was Lip,” Ian tells him. “Liam’s in the hospital. Overdosed on some coke Fiona left out.”

***

Things had been going great, so of course they had to suddenly get worse. 

Liam’s in the hospital, after ingesting coke that was left out at Fiona’s birthday party late Wednesday night. And now Fiona’s in holding. Lip’s taking a break from college to deal with family shit. 

And the MPs are still after Ian. 

They had shown up on the doorstep on Tuesday when Mickey had been at work at the Alibi and Ian had been getting training at the White Swallow. Mandy had been the only one home, and thankfully she had told them that they hadn’t heard a single word from Ian, and she hadn’t seen him around or anyone who had looked like him. 

But now it means that he has to keep his head down. No more walks with Aileen, he has to wear sunglasses and a hat whenever he goes outside. He’s basically on house arrest. And he hates it. 

It’s fucking stupid, is what it is. At any other job, you can quit and there will be no repercussions, but you quit on the army and now you’re a criminal? Ian thinks it’s stupid. 

And he can’t even go to the hospital to visit his brother, because Mickey claims it’s too risky. But he needs to see at least _someone_ from his family, rather than just hearing about them from Lip’s texts. He needs to know they’re alright. Mickey’s home for the day, because Kev told him he wasn’t going to open up the Alibi and instead take care of Debbie and Carl at the Gallagher house, so he takes care of Aileen while Ian slips out, taking the back roads to avoid potential interacting with MPs. 

When he goes in through the back door to the kitchen, he spies Kev and V immediately, sitting at the kitchen table, both with steaming mugs of coffee in their hands. 

To say they’re surprised to see him is an understatement. Kev immediately wraps him up with his long arms, repeating “Holy fuck!” over and over again. V remains sitting, but is no less excited, her mouth dropped permanently open. 

“What the- aren’t you in the army?” V asks, suspicious. 

“Not anymore,” Ian says, patting Kev on the back, trying to get him to stop squeezing. “I, uh, missed everyone, so I came home.”

Kev pulls back, _finally,_ a grin spreading across his face. “ _That’s_ why Mickey’s been looking so happy!” he says. 

“Isn’t that illegal, to run away from the army?” V asks when Ian hugs her next, careful of her large stomach. 

“Yeah,” Ian replies. “Which is why I’ve kinda been lying low. So… if you could, don’t tell Debbie and Carl you saw me? They could tell anybody.”

“Yeah, of course not, man,” Kev says, punching him lightly on the shoulder, although V looks doubtful.

“How are they by the way?” Ian asks, nodding upstairs. 

“Shaken up, badly,” V replies. “We didn’t leave the hospital until 2 am, and only Lip was allowed to see Liam. Only immediate family members over 18, the nurse said. Lip says he’s still knocked out, cold. They’re gonna keep him in the hospital until he wakes up. Fiona’s in prison. Her court date is in two days. We haven’t talked to her yet- no fucking clue how she’s doing.”

Ian runs a hand through his hair. “Shit,” he sighs. “Are _you_ guys doing okay?”

Kev and V exchange a look.

“We will be,” V says. 

“Hey, congratulations by the way,” Ian says, guestering to V’s belly. He doesn’t miss the way her eyes light up. 

“Yeah,” she chuckles out. “5 months. Triplets.”

“Wow,” Ian says, raising his eyebrows. He can’t imagine 3 babies. 

“On top of one I already knocked Veronica’s mom up with!” Kev says, grinning widely like he won the lottery. 

Ian can’t believe his ears. “4? Well, if you guys ever need help with babysitting, you can always ask us, alright?”

They thank him, and he tells them he has to go, but to text him with updates or if they need any help with Debbie and Carl. He slips back to the Milkovich house, and finds Mickey in their room, reading to Aileen, trying to get her to sound out names of animals. He’s on pig, but Aileen is more interested in trying to fit the pages in her mouth than say words. 

“She not cooperating?” Ian asks as he takes a seat next to their daughter. She turns towards him, grinning. 

“Pa!” she says, holding her hands up, demanding to be picked up. Ian drags her into his lap and squeals happily, patting her hands on his knees. 

“Yeah, and you’re no help,” Mickey scoffs at him, then holds the book out to Aileen. “Pig, Aileen, _pig_.”

Aileen just squeaks, waving her arms around and staring up at Ian. 

Ian chuckles and lets her grab onto his chin, which seems to be her favorite thing to hold in the whole world. “Did you know Kev and V are going to have 4 kids?” he says absentmindedly. 

“4? I thought V was having triplets,” Mickey says, tossing the book to the side. 

“Yeah, but her mom’s their surrogate. Kev knocked her up, then V found out she was pregnant.”

Mickey makes a face. “That’s kind of messed up,” he said. “Kev knocked up Veronica’s mom?”

Ian shrugs, studying Aileen as her eyes sweep over his face, as if she’s studying it for something. “I told them we could babysit sometime.”

Mickey just scoffs. “Yeah right, because this house needs to be ever more crowded.”

Ian thinks that if it’s crowded with babies, that won’t be the worst thing in the world. 

Later that night, he leaves for his first shift bartending. He hates the fact that he has to leave Aileen before he can put her to bed, but he makes sure to give her enough hugs and kisses to last a lifetime, and then deposits her back in Mickey’s arms. 

“Bye-bye, Papa,” Mickey says in his baby voice, waving at Ian. 

Ian can’t hide the grin that overtakes his face. He really fucking loves when Mickey’s like this, when he speaks to their daughter in ways that he knows his own father didn’t. It reminds Ian of just how fucking far he’s come, of how far they’ve both come. 

Aileen waves back to him, her wrist floppy and awkward. 

“Buh-bye!” she chirps out, and Ian stays an extra few minutes cooing over her, because _she just said her 5th word!_

The night is cold and empty as he makes his way north. He can hear the bass from the White Swallow a long ways away before he actually reaches the nondescript door. The place is packed, completely unrecognizable from the way it looked in the daylight when he came for bar training. The overhead lights are turned off, just colored lights flashing and swooping, illuminating dancers high on platforms. Ian has to swerve around sweaty bodies and lingering gazes that make his skin prickle to find the staff doors in the back. 

He ducks into the locker room, finding Dan easily, who hands him his outfit, booty shorts, a silver, sparkling tank top and a jock strap. 

“Stalls are over there,” Dan says, waving off to the side. Ian changes in a bathroom stall, his elbows knocking against the walls every now and then. 

He studies himself in the mirror after, and can’t resist laughing. “I look fucking stupid.”

“Yeah, but the men love it,” Dan replies. He grabs some gel from his bag, coats his hands with it, and runs it through Ian’s hair, slicking some strands back, giving it more of a shape. “You ever done eyeliner before?” he asks, holding up a sleek black pen. 

Ian shakes his head, and Dan sighs like it’s the worst tragedy he’s ever heard. 

“Sweetie,” he says. “Praise the powers that be that you landed this job. You really needed it.”

Ian lets Dan put eyeliner on him, swiping the pen just above his eyelashes while he closes his eyes. When he opens them and studies himself in the mirror, he has to admit, he looks good. The black makes his green eyes pop out. 

“Hmm, you’re gonna have all the boys on you tonight,” Dan says, grinning. 

Ian can’t help but through a smile back at him. “No thanks,” he says. “I already got myself a boy.”

Bartending is exhilarating. He gets to talk to so many people, hear so many stories. The people who stick to the bar for longer than 5 minutes are usually single and mopey, and are looking for someone to talk with, not someone to fuck. Ian lets a few guys spill their stories to him, complaining over beautiful boys who took their hearts and broke them into pieces, about strict fathers and sad mothers, death, joblessness, and anything else that spills out of their mouths. 

Ian shares a few of his own stories, as well, about Aileen (who they instantly want to know more about), about Mickey, his family or the army. A few people hit on him, but he just shrugs it off because they’re a little drunk and it’s a club, you’re supposed to be flirting. 

“Damn, looks like you’re a fan favorite,” Dan mutters to him sometime around 10, when Ian’s already been there for over 2 hours. 

“Really?” he says back, drying off a glass. 

“Yeah, you’re really goddamn good at this,” he replies, then jerks his head over to the far side of the bar. “You should go see if that gentleman needs a drink. He’s been staring at you for a while now.”

The guy is old and wrinkly and reminds Ian of Ned, but he goes over there anyway. The guy isn’t too bad, mainly moping about his wife always getting on his back for being out late at clubs, then stalks off to talk to a twink Ian pointed out, halfway across the club. 

The bass pounds through Ian’s bones and he bobs his head along to the beat of the songs, and he feels great, actually. He finds out that guys give him bigger tips if he leans his hands against the bar and flexes his biceps a little, but that not to overdo it, or else he’ll get grabbed like he did that one time with the man wearing the red suit. But he got picked up the bouncers quick, and Ian thinks that as far as clubs go, this one isn’t really half bad. 

He gets lost in the rhythmic pouring of drinks, and finds that remembering what mixes makes what drinks comes naturally to him. Dan’s right. He _is_ good at this. 

At 2 am, his shift finally finishes, and he drags himself back to the locker room. His eyeliner is a bit smudged, and a strand of hair has escaped its gel prison, but he’s still smiling. 

“I take it you liked it?” Dan says, grinning as he strips his tank top over his head. 

“Hell yeah,” Ian responds. “Made a shit ton of tips, too,” he holds out the money he stuck in the waistband of his shorts and shows it to the other man. 

Dan whistles, low. “That’s more than I could ever make in a night for my first _month_. I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re good at this, Curtis.” He throws a wink at him at the end. 

Ian changes quickly, going back into his street clothes, which feel strange against his skin, and then steps out into the night. It’s almost a complete change from the environment of the club, and he finds his heart still beating fast as he takes the L home. 

He finally reaches the Milkovich house at half past, and slips inside, making his way to the bathroom first. He’s rather sweaty, so he showers quickly and brushes his teeth before sneaking into his bedroom. Aileen’s in her crib, sleeping peacefully, and the moonlight is slipping through the crack in the bottom of the shade in the window, falling across Mickey’s face. 

He looks nearly ethereal, and Ian can’t help but smile at his boyfriend. He tugs on a pair of sleep pants over his old boxers, and climbs in behind Mickey, sliding an arm around his chest and interlocking their fingers. 

“82 bucks,” he whispers into his ear. Mickey doesn’t stir at all. “I made 82 bucks in tips tonight, Mick. We’re gonna be so fucking rich.”

***

 _Courthouse on 34th at 11. Don’t bring Ian._ is the text Mickey gets from Lip when he wakes up the next morning, wrapped up Ian as if he had never gone to work. 

“You gonna go?” Ian asks him when Mickey reads Lip’s text out loud. 

“To the courthouse? I don’t know, man,” he responds, stretching his neck out. Ian rests his chin on his shoulder. 

“Lip invited you. And it’s Fiona. _And_ I can’t go. You should go and tell me what happened and all that shit.”

Mickey chews on his lower lip. Ian’s right. It is Fiona. Fiona, who gave him a house when he was knocked up and scared. Fiona, who was able to eventually look past his tattoos and give him a second chance. Now she’s in jail, for a mistake she made. It was a huge fucking mistake, sure, but he remmebers the way she would goofily smile at Aileen.

“Fine,” he says eventually, and Ian grins. 

“You going to open shop today?” Svetlana asks him when they’re eating breakfast, and he’s trying to get Aileen to eat yogurt from a spoon, which she absolutely _refuses_ to do, turning her head away and whining. 

“No,” he grunts out. “Got shit to do today.”

“Well, I cannot do it, I need to go grocery shopping,” she snaps back. 

“I can get the groceries,” Ian says quickly, and Svetlana glances at him, and Mickey wonders when the fuck they became best friends. Ian used to despise Svetlana because she forced them to get married, but now they’re fucking exchanging glances across the table. 

“List on counter,” Svetlana says, guestering into the kitchen. “You come by later?” she asks Mickey, and he nods in reply, lifting the spoon up to Aileen’s mouth again, rubbing the yogurt against her lips. 

“No!” she declares, screwing her face up. Mickey sighs. 

He changes into his nicest shirt and the pair of jeans that aren’t faded or torn, then says bye to Aileen, but she’s content enough to try and gnaw off Ian’s fingers. 

The rest of the Gallagher clan is at the courthouse when he makes his way in, antsy at being around so many people, especially police officers. Even Kev and V are there, looking serious, Kev’s arm wrapped around V’s shoulder. The only person who isn’t there is Frank, but not that Mickey would expect that.

“Where’s Aileen?” Debbie asks when he arrives, looking disappointed at the absence of her niece. 

“At home,” Mickey replies to her, then, to Lip, “Spending the day with Ian.”

“How’s he doing? Still laying low?” Lip asks in an undertone. 

Mickey shrugs. “He got a job as a bartender at some faggy night club,” he responds. 

Lip frowns. “Isn’t that a bit risky, with the army still looking for him? What if he gets caught?”

“Well, I’d rather take the chance that he might be picked up by MPs over the fact that we’d never be able to feed our kid again, _Phillip_.”

Fiona’s case is called into session, and they all file into the courtroom. There’s tons of other people there, and a box to the right where inmates are lined up, waiting for their case. Mickey takes a seat next to Kev just as Fiona’s led in, wearing a blue prison uniform, her hair unkempt, looking dead. 

The judge bangs his gravel, and the public defender rises.

“Fiona Gallagher. Case S6-974356. Is council present?”

“Yes, your Honor,” the public defender says, some serious-looking Latina woman with a pencil skirt. Mickey sinks a little lower into his seat, feeling out of place. The defender taps on the wire caging of the box, and Fiona rises. 

“Read the charges.”

“Possession of a controlled substance, a Class 4 felony, under 720 Illinios Criminal Statute 570.1, and child endangerment, a violation of the Reckless Conduct Code 720-ILCS5, Section 12C-5, a Class 3 felony,” the councilwoman rattles off. 

“Jesus,” Mickey mutters. 

“How does the defendant plead?” the judge asks, sounding bored. 

Fiona doesn’t respond. She stares at them, at Debbie and Carl, and even at Mickey. She looks like she’s about to cry or throw up. 

“Miss Gallagher?” the judge says when she takes too long. 

“Not guilty, your Honor,” Fiona says. 

“Defense requests the accused be released on her own recognizance,” Fiona’s defense says. 

“Cocaine overdose in a toddler?” the councilwoman argues, curling her lip. “The child is still in intensive care.”

“Bail is set at $100,000, check with the clerk to get a preliminary hearing date,” the judge says quickly, and bangs his gravel. “Next.”

That’s it? That’s fucking it?

“What?” Veronica demands, frowning. 

“The fuck? Can they fucking do that?” Mickey hisses out to Lip, over the heads of Debbie and Carl. 

Lip shrugs at him, watching Fiona be led away. “She pleaded not guilty. At least we get bail and a hearing.”

“Yeah, bail you can’t fucking meet,” Mickey says back at him. 

“C’mon guys, let’s go,” V says to Carl and Debbie, standing up and grabbing her coat, her eyes trained on Fiona’s public defender as she exits the courtroom. 

They chase after her, V taking the front, calling out after her, “Excuse me!”

“Yes?” the defender says back without even turning around. 

“We’re Fiona Gallgher’s family.”

“Okay.”

“$100,000? She didn’t carve some dude up and stuff his parts in a freezer!” V protests. 

The lady takes a corner and heads towards some elevators, and they all follow her. 

“You don’t have to put up 100,000. County only requires 10% for the bond,” she says, finally turning around to them. 

“10 grand?”

“They accept collateral of equal value, a house, a car. I can try to get it reduced at her preliminary hearing, if the victim recovers-”

“Liam,” V butts in. 

“-Liam recovers, that could influence the judge to lower her bail,” the defender finishes, and starts to turn away. “Gotta go.”

She leaves them, and V turns to Lip, who’s taken a seat on one of the benches. 

“$10,000?”

Lip shrugs helplessly. “Forget it, we don’t have it.”

“We can’t just leave her in jail,” Debbie aruges. 

“We don't have the money, Debs.”

“We can raise it, we can sell stuff, and we can-” Debbie starts, but Lip cuts her off. 

“No!” he shouts, standing up. “Christ, just drop it, _fuck,_ Debs!”

Debbie stares at him for a second, then shoves her middle finger in his face and stomps away. Lip calls after her, but V settles a hand on his shoulder and goes after her herself. 

“The fuck is up with her?” Mickey asks Kev, who just shakes his head. 

“Smooth, asshole,” he says to Lip. “Smooth.”

“Look, we gotta find Frank, or they’re gonna put Liam into foster care,” Lip says quietly so Carl won’t hear. 

“Shit,” Kev says. 

“Yeah, look, Carl, I want you to go back to the hospital, alright? Stay with Liam, keep us updated on how he’s doing?” Lip asks Carl, and the kid nods. “I already tried the house, he wasn't there. You up for another round of where the fuck’s Frank?” he asks Kev, who nods. 

“Yeah, sure.”

“He could be in Sheila’s sweat lodge,” Carl says. 

“Her what?” Mickey asks. 

“Over by that chick’s trailer by the Sable lot?”

“She hopped a bus before I could catch her,” V declares them, coming back from chasing Debbie. 

“She’s upset, she’ll just go home,” Lip says, sounding drained. 

Mickey scoffs. “Wonder why.”

Lip turns to him. “Oh what, me yelling at her? You think that’s the most traumatic thing that’s happened to her in the last 18 hours?”

“Fuck off, man,” Mickey mutters. Lip needs to chill the fuck out. 

“Look, let’s just go see if we can find whatever gutter our responsible adult of a father has crawled into this time,” Lip says, ruffling Carl’s hair. 

They all go their separate ways, Carl to the hospital, Kev and Lip to find Frank, V back to the Alibi, and Mickey back to his house. He texts Ian on the L, letting him know what happened in the court. 

_$10,000??_ Ian texted back. _Who the fuck has that kind of money??_

 _Not ur family, thats for sure_ Mickey replies. 

_Also, wheres canned corn?_ Ian adds. 

***

_Aisle 5._

“Shit, we already passed that,” Ian sighs, squinting down at the list Svetlana had shoved into his hands earlier that day. Her handwriting is tiny, and all in cursive, and the only thing going for Ian is that she didn’t write the whole thing in Russian.

“Guess we’re gonna have to turn around, huh, princess,” he says to Aileen, who’s buckled into the child seat at the front of the cart. He spins the cart around, making whooshing noises, and she loves it, giggling and kicking her feet. 

“And that’s Gallagher in the lead, number 22, going 189 down the straightaway!” he declares, as if he’s a sport announcer at a car race. He jogs down to aisle 5, taking a sharp corner and imitating a revving engine. People are staring at him weirdly, but he doesn't give two shits. Aileen is laughing, loving every minute of it. 

He runs halfway down the aisle, then skids to a stop and dramatically throws his hands up. “And we’ve won! Gallagher’s won!” Aileen practically screeches with laughter, kicking her legs in the seat. Ian tickles her stomach, just making her laugh even more. 

It’s then when he spies the man down the aisle from him. He’s old, with weathered skin and wispy hair and he had been in the previous aisle, staring at Ian and Aileen with dead eyes. Ian bristles. Has he been following them? But the man just studies tomato sauce, squinting at it, and Ian decides he’s not a threat, just an old guy. 

“Shit,” he sighs when he realizes the canned corn is behind him. “Stay here, princess,” he says to Aileen, but she just babbles at him and grabs the stuffed lion he brought to keep her occupied. He moves down the rows of canned food, until he finds the corn. 

Why Svetlana wants him to get corn, he has no idea. It’s the most disgusting vegetable, in his opinion. But he studies the different cans, deciding which one is the cheapest. 

Just as he’s about to grab the generic, $0.99 can, a shriek pierces his eardrums. 

It’s Aileen. 

And that fucking old guy, the exact one he decided was no problem, is trying to wrestle her out of the cart. 

“What the fuck, man!” Ian explodes, running over and shoving at the man. He stumbles, his eyes wide. “What the fuck were you doing?!”

“I-I was j-just,” the man stutters, pointing at Aileen. He recovers, and takes a step, reaching towards her again. 

Ian sees red, because this _disgusting_ person is trying to touch _his_ daughter, and he brings his fist back, then lets his elbow flick forward and punches the guy in the face. 

At least that one month in boot camp was good for _something,_ Ian thinks. 

Aileen’s still screaming when the man collapses for real this time, his nose instantly bleeding. Ian can hear gasps around him from other shoppers, but he ignores them for grabbing Aileen out of the cart and pressing her face against his chest, gently petting his hair. 

“Shh, you’re alright, princess,” he hums, gently rocking her, then turns to the man. “You think it’s fucking funny to make kids cry?” he demands. 

“Woah, woah, sir, what happened?” some tired-looking store employee says, rushing over and trying to calm things down. 

“He just tried to fucking take my daughter!” Ian snaps. “I was like, 50 feet away!”

The employee looks at the old man, who’s made it to his feet, his hand still pressed to his bleeding nose. He’s breathing heavily, eyes black, clearly on something. 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the employee says, and the man goes without a fight, not even looking at Ian. 

Aileen’s calmed down somewhat, still holding onto Ian’s sweater and hiccuping silently. 

“She alright?” some old asks, squinting at her. 

“Yeah,” Ian sighs. “Thanks.”

“How old is she?” the woman presses. “She’s sweet.”

Ian lets a smile spread across his face. “She’s 14 months.”

The woman pats him on the shoulder and nods. “You’re a good father,” she says. 

Aileen nuzzles into Ian’s chest, and lets out a little coo. He lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. She’s alright. Of course she’s alright. Aileen’s a tough little fucker, one mishap at the grocery store isn’t going to ruin her day. She stares up at him with her huge blue eyes, and he can’t help but smile down at her and run his fingers through her soft hair. 

“Thanks,” he says to the woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mickey already had his papa bear moment, so I felt like Ian needed one, too. 
> 
> Also, to those it may concern: no, Mickey is not pregnant.
> 
> Yet. 
> 
> Look for the next chapter on Friday!


	5. A Jailbird, Invalid, Martyr, Cutter, Retard, and Parasitic Twin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Get the fuck out, close the door!” he snaps, trying to strain forward to grab onto the door, but Mandy ignores him.   
> “He’s not answering any of my texts, and you’re not gonna mope around all day for him!”  
> “What the fuck you talking about?”  
> “Don’t play dumb with me,” Mandy sneers. “You really gonna sit here all day, chain-smoking when you should be looking for Ian? So go find him. I gotta go to work.”  
> 4.07

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: drug use and sad Mickey. :(  
> Ian kinda goes off his rocker here.
> 
> As you might've noticed, I changed the chapter count from 9 to 10. I tried to smush the last two chapters together, but then decided against it because it made it super long and I felt like the content in both of them were drastically different, so they would feel better as separate chapters.

It’s strange, being away from the Gallagher house. Ian had just gotten used to sleeping away from his siblings last fall, but he could still pop over whenever he felt like it. Then the army happened, and now he has to keep his head down, which means no more surprise visits. Lip is the only Gallagher who knows he’s home yet. So hearing about the going-ons of the Gallaghers but not being able to see them is pretty fucking weird for Ian. 

Lip keeps him posted. On Sunday, it was, _Liam’s out of the hospital and Frank’s liver is failing._ Early on Monday morning it was _Fiona’s back. Her boss/ex bailed her out._

Later on Monday, Lip texted him while he was in the shower, saying, _Forgot to mention we have a half sister. Sammi. Frank’s daughter. She’s living with us now. Taking care of Frank._

“Jesus Christ,” Mickey says when Ian reads him the texts. “And I thought Terry was a mass producer.”

Ian scoffs at that, and wraps an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulder, pulling him close to press a kiss against his forehead. Mandy and Kenyatta are at work, and Mickey’s getting ready to head over to the Rub N’ Tug with Svetlana. Their business is really taking off. They get a good crowd from the Alibi and Mckey’s been able to settle the payment disputes with the girls- $30-$45 for the customer, depending on how rich he looks, with the girls taking 45%. It’s 10% more than they started out making, and they’re making less money off each guy, but the extra customers from their sudden popularity means that the costs cancel out and Mickey’s able to bring home good money each day. 

Ian’s faring not so bad himself, either. 

He still racks in heavy tips, plus his weekly paycheck, which comes in 2 days, and they’re finally able to afford good food, and not the cheap, generic shit that tastes like wet paper towels. 

Ian rolls out of bed, landing heavily on his feet, and yawns widely. He’s ready for a nice, lazy day of playing with Aileen and watching TV with everyone else out of the house. Speaking of, she’s already calling out his name softly, wiggling excitedly as she waits for him to pick her up. 

“Morning, princess,” he coos, grabbing her around her armpits and lifting her out of her crib and onto his hip. 

“Dada!” she chirps, reaching out for Mickey, who’s tugging a shirt over his head, nearly wriggling out of Ian’s arms. 

“Hey, Aileen,” Mickey hums, rubbing a hand on her back. 

“Dada dada dada dada,” Aileen sing-songs, and Ian can’t help but chuckle. She’s starting to develop “speech patterns” (as the internet calls it), playing around with tones and the speed of her babbling, almost imitating an actual conversation. Ian’s noticed that whenever he says something to her, she’ll usually repeat it back, not the actual words, but more the way he’s saying it. He finds it so fucking cute and Aileen never fails to amaze him with how smart she is. At only 14 months old, he’s decided that she’s going to be the smartest human being on the face of the planet. 

“Dada,” Aileen says once more, sadly, as Mickey moves away, reaching out longingly for him. 

“I know, sweetheart,” Mickey sighs. “But my bladder is about to fucking explode, and I don’t think your papa wants to clean up piss everywhere.”

“Fuck!” Aileen chirps, clapping her hands together and giggling, the sadness of Mickey no longer within her wingspan forgotten as she says her favorite word. 

“We gotta teach you a new word,” Ian says, nuzzling into her nose with his. She ignores him, and lifts her feet up, bending forward in his arms so she can wrap her fingers around the tops of her feet, pulling at the footed onesies she’s in and whining. 

Ian chuckles. “Yeah, I know, I’ll change you super quick.” He gently lays her down on the queen bed and makes quick work of unzipping her onesies, taking her feet out of it. She hates things on her feet. Mickey had bought her the onesie because it was winter time and “A fucking lot of heat is lost through your feet, Ian,” and it had cute little squirrels on it that he claimed Aileen would love. 

Well, she didn’t. As of late, Aileen’s started to develop a preference for different types of clothes. When Ian picks out her outfit in the morning, she’ll reach towards any clothes she likes and turn her nose up at any clothes she hates. So far, Ian’s picked up that she loves legging but despises skirts, and doesn’t give two shits about whatever top she wears, but she gets excited when Ian dresses her in the tiny gray zip-up hoodie with the blue butterfly, mainly because she can shove the ends in her mouth. 

Anything on her feet, however, will eventually come off not too long after Ian’s put it on her. Doesn’t matter if it’s socks, shoes, or boots, she’ll whine and tug on them until the offending pieces of clothing are off and very far away from her. Ian’s caught her literally chucking her tiny baby socks halfway across the living room. 

He manages to wrestle her legs into black leggings, after a quick diaper change ( _god,_ Ian can’t wait until she’s potty trained), and her arms into a polka-dot soft green shirt. He forgoes socks, because he doesn’t want to deal with that this morning, not when she’s being so sweet already. By the time he’s done, Mickey is done in the bathroom. He’s dressed for work, black jeans and a blue button-down that makes his eyes stand out and Ian can’t help but grab a hold of his collar and pull him in for a kiss, slotting their lips together. 

Mickey twines an arm around his waist and hums into the kiss, practically melting against Ian. It makes Ian’s knees weak, the fact that he has this much power of Mickey, he can manhandle him however he wants with just one kiss. 

But now is not the time to get a hard-on while he’s holding his daughter, so he pulls back and stares down at Mickey, who’s got a lazy grin on his face. 

“Pa!” Aileen demands then, and Ian and Mickey glance down at her. Her arms are crossed and she’s pouting from being devoid of attention for nearly 8 seconds. Mickey chuckles, and then both he and Ian are leaning in at the same time, as if they have the same mind, and each presses a kiss to either side of her cheek. 

She perks up instantly then, grinning up at them and cooing softly. 

“You’re a little pig for attention, aren’t you?” Mickey chuckles, going in to tickle her tummy. She squeals, squirming in Ian’s hold, trying to get away from Mickey’s fingers, nearly taking a spill out of Ian’s arms while doing so. 

“Woah!” Ian says, clutching her tight as he feels his grip slipping. He sets her down on the floor so she doesn't risk falling again, and she clings to his pant leg for support. “Whadda say about some breakfast, princess?”

Mandy makes bacon for breakfast, a rarity, but a nice surprise. Kenyatta’s seated at the table, a quiet, immovable force as always, and Ian tries his hardest not to glare at him. He’s still not over him cheating on Mandy, and then them acting as if nothing’s the matter. Ian calls bullshit. Ever since Lip finally ended things with Mandy and Kenyatta showed up, Mandy’s been quiet, reserved, even when it’s just her and Ian. Ian misses the days she used to be outspoken, loud, funny. Now she curves in on herself and acts like everyone else doesn't see it. 

Ian sets Aileen down in her high chair and straps her in and she picks at the buckle, but her fingers aren’t coordinated enough to undo it, which Ian is thankful for. He doesn’t need her sliding off onto the floor. 

Svetlana’s already at the table, reading the newspaper, her elbows framing in her large stomach. She’s 8 months along now, and soon they’ll have another baby in the house, a tiny newborn who’ll wake them up at ungodly hours in the night. Ian doesn't know what to think about it. 

On one hand, it’ll be another mouth to feed and a completely dependent human being, and it might put a damper on Svetlana’s work, but on the other, and, as weird as it might be, the baby _is_ Mickey’s brother. Half-brother, but still. Sure, he might be the spawn of Terry, but he’s a part of Mickey’s weird family, and, by extension, part of Ian’s, too. Plus, he’s a baby. A cute, tiny little baby who Aileen will no doubt want to play with. 

It’ll be good to have another baby in the house for her, Ian thinks. There’s not a whole lot of kids her age in the neighborhood, besides Liam, who literally just got out of the hospital and Ian can’t visit anyway, having to lay low because of the MPs. But Liam and Aileen haven’t interacted a whole lot, mainly because she moved out a few months ago, and before that was a much smaller baby who didn’t really do much besides wriggle on her stomach and sleep. 

Aileen needs more baby friends, Ian suddenly realizes. She can’t go on living her life with just her dads and aunt for company. 

Mandy comes to the table with a plate of bacon, and Mickey brings over the eggs and toast, and Ian gets to work, making up a plate for himself and Mickey, and spooning out a few chunks of scrambled eggs for Aileen on her tray. Mickey also brought over some applesauce for her and pieces of banana, all of which she happily eats up. 

The table is mostly silent while everyone eats their breakfast, save for the sounds of chewing and Aileen’s babbling that she does every once and again, and it makes Ian miss the hustle and bustle of the Gallagher house again. 

He’s going to go crazy, having been home for nearly 2 weeks and not being able to see anyone other than Lip, Kev, and V, and he’ll have to bring it up to Mickey after work, because his boyfriend looks rather stressed right now, arguing with Svetlana in hushed tones. 

They’re still arguing when they’re leaving the house, after breakfast is over. Mickey had said a rushed goodbye to Ian and Aileen, then had stomped out, hissing something to his wife. It’s easy to forget that Mickey and Svetlana are married most days. They don’t spend a lot of time together, and when they do, they’re arguing, and it’s not like they have rings on their fingers, proudly displaying their bond. Ian feels almost bad for the freakout he had when Mickey first announced he was getting married, _almost._ Mickey is still his boyfriend, and they’re still legally married, no matter how much he tries to forget it. 

Kenyatta leaves not so much later, and Mandy doesn't have to go in to work for another half hour, so she helps Ian clean up. Ian distracts Aileen with a colorful, plastic key ring which she shakes and then laughs at the noise. 

“Mandy,” Ian says when they’re standing side-by-side and doing the dishes, Mandy washing, Ian drying. “You know if you ever need to talk to someone you can come to either Mick or I, right?”

Mandy glances over at him and gives him the smallest of smiles, just a slight twitch with the corner of her mouth. “I know,” she says quietly, then leaves for work early. 

Ian leans up against the counter, letting out a sigh. He has no idea what the fuck is going on with Mandy right now, but he wishes that everything in her life would just all turn out right for her. She doesn't need anymore shit. 

For the rest of the morning, he puts on Sesame Street and lets Aileen climb into his lap as he sits on the couch. He bounces her along to the songs, and she claps her hands together, loving it. When the little characters sound out the ABCs, Ian repeats them, trying to get Aileen to say them. He can see her mouth moving to try and form the words, but nothing comes out. But she’s still got time- she’s just barely into her toddler years, and Ian’s not concerned with her development. From all the baby websites he’s read, they say she’s at normal development right now. 

He puts her down for her morning nap at 10:30, shutting off the lights in the room and letting the door slide softly shut. She’ll sleep for a little more than an hour, then wake up and get a diaper change before lunch, so Ian’s got some time to himself. 

And nothing to do. 

He tries to watch TV, but gets bored after a few minutes, and aimlessly wanders around the house. It seems like every couple of days, it gets dirty again with old napkins, take out containers, cigarette stubs, and the occasional condom (from Mandy and Kenyatta, though, Ian and Mickey only fuck in their room after Mandy walking in on them once). He stops in the kitchen, because it’s looking disgusting as of late, and decides to get to work cleaning. 

He wipes down the counters first, which have grease stains from cooking spray and food stuck on them, then gets to work cleaning out the fridge. An uncapped beer bottle has spilled over, and Ian makes a face as he wipes it up. Couldn’t people be a _little_ more civilized? 

He digs out trash from behind the heater, wipes down baseboards, and cleans around the stove. By the time he’s done, the kitchen is sparkly clean and Aileen should be awake from her nap now. 

Sure enough, she is, blinking up sleepily at him as he switches on the light. 

“Hi, princess,” he coos gently, picking her up and making quick work of changing her diaper. “How was your nap?”

“Pa,” she sighs sweetly, and Ian presses a kiss to the side of her head. 

Lunch consists of half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and milk, which she gobbles down quickly. Later, Ian spreads out puzzles for her, the easy kind that consist of matching shapes and putting 4 pieces together. 

Another nap comes around 3, then another diaper change, and Ian wrinkles his nose as he wipes his daughter’s butt. 

“Can’t wait until you’re all potty trained, then I won’t have to keep changing your nasty diapers,” he says to her. 

She thinks it’s funny, laughing as he throws the used diaper away and slides a new one up her legs. Later, Ian bundles her up in her giant jacket and takes her outside, bringing her favorite ball with them. 

He throws it around the back yard for her to chase, letting her exercise her legs. She loves it, and only falls down once, which results in a few tears, then she immediately gets distracted by a leaf blowing down next to her and pounces on it. She’s red-cheeked and her nose is red by the time they get back inside, and Ian cups her tiny hands in his and blows on them until she giggles. 

She’s playing with her stuffed bunny when Mickey gets home, babbling to it as if they’re holding a conversation. As soon as Mickey steps foot through the door, she pushes herself to her feet and toddles over to him, chanting, “Dada! Dada!”

Mickey picks her up, settling her on his hip, and runs a hand through her hair. 

“Hey sweetheart, you have a good day with Papa?”

Ian can’t help but smile at the sweet picture they make, Mickey staring into their daughter’s eyes as if she’s the whole world. And she is, Ian knows. Aileen’s changed their lives so fucking much. Without her, who’d know what they’d be doing right now? They probably wouldn’t even be together. 

Slowly, the Milkovich house fills up once again as people trickle in from their various jobs. Dinner rolls around, and it’s usually louder than breakfast, as Colin’s there. He usually skips breakfast in favor of heading out early to do whatever it is he does that pulls in money. Ian’s not sure he wants to know. 

Colin tells them that night that he visited Iggy in prison, and he’s doing fine, and is going to get released in 3 months time on good behavior. Ian’s glad. He likes Iggy, with his stupid jokes and the way he can always make Aileen laugh. He’s Ian’s third favorite Milkovich, after Mickey and Mandy, of course. 

After dinner, Ian takes a quick shower, and then he’s off to work. The streets are quiet on a Monday night, but Ian knows that that won’t mean the club is. Dan and a few other boys he’s come to know are already there by the time he slips into the locker room, all huddled around in a little group. 

“Whatcha doing?” he asks, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder and heading over to them. Dan glances back at him, and holds up a rolled cigarette. 

“Crack,” he says, grinning. “Noah got it. Good shit, too. Want some?”

Ian thinks about it for a moment. He’s always liked it, whenever he could manage to get it around the neighborhood. It made his thoughts run, and he’s usually found himself to be more productive when he takes it. But… he’s quit smoking. And he’s been doing good so far, he doesn’t want the cocaine to make him miss the feel of a cigarette in his fingers. 

“Nah,” he says, moving over to his locker and starting to spin the dial to unlock it. “Quit smoking.”

“Well,” another one of the boys says, a really tiny twink whose name Ian doesn't know. “Good thing we got powder.” He holds up a little baggie filled with white dust, and Ian hesitates. 

Honestly, he’s drop dead tired. Doing night shifts but still having to get up early to take care of Aileen are starting to affect his sleep. He’s yawning more than he’d like to admit, and he’s become slow at work. So maybe a little crack won’t hurt tonight. He’s not smoking it, anyway. He’s just taking it to stay awake. 

So Ian grins and holds out his hand. “Hell, yeah. Pass that shit over.”

He taps some out onto the back of his hand and lines it up, bending over and holding one nostril close while he snorts up the crack with the other one. He sniffs a few times to avoid sneezing, and grins. It’s been a while since he’s taken coke, before Aileen, and he’s missed the lightheadedness he gets immediately after taking it. 

“Thanks,” he says to the twink, and hands it back. He already feels better, more awake. He can feel his heartbeat pick up as he changes into his outfit. They got new ones, sleek black tank tops instead of silves ones, but still with the same black booty shorts. 

He feels lighter on his feet when he’s pouring drinks, more energetic, more productive. He can’t help but grin throughout his shift. He feels _good._ He feels really good. He smiles wider, moves quicker, and makes more tips, and maybe that’s why on his break, he finds Dan and takes more, craving that rush again. 

The hours blur together, and before he knows it, his shift is over, and he’s stripping out of his shirt, which is now slightly damp with sweat.

“Holy fuck, man!” Dan laughs, changing next to him. “You were like on fucking fire tonight! I think you set the record for fastest Paloma!”

Ian chuckles at that. He feels light, strong, like he wants to run 15 miles. 

“Hey, I’m having a small get-together at my place now. A few of the boys are coming. You in?” Dan asks, his eyes twinkling with mischief. 

“Will there be more?” Ian hears himself ask. 

“Fuck yeah.”

“Then I’m in.”

Dan’s place is nice, a moderately sized apartment. The walls are crisp and white and he has a whole fucking display of expensive wines- light up shelves that change color. 5 other guys join them- Noah, Jake (who got hired not long after Ian), Tristan, Carter, and the twink with the crack, who Ian learns is Brandon. They’re all fake names, but that’s more of the fun, Ian thinks, because whenever they talk to each other, they overemphasize each other’s names as if it’s some kind of inside joke. It kind of is, Ian realizes. 

Dan blares some music that’s not so different from the songs at the club, and Brandon, who’s full of surprises, brings out molly in different colors and charges them $30 for a pill. That’s not so bad, Ian thinks, and takes 2, pocketing one for later, maybe he’ll bring it back for Mickey, and tosses one back, dry swallowing it. 

The rest of the night disappears in a whirlwind of colors. Dan has some black lights that he switches on, and Ian can feel the bass in his bones and his blood through his veins, and he feels really fucking _great._

Eventually, Carter leaves, and Jake and Tristian disappear into Dan’s guest room to fuck, and Noah pounds back good alcohol and passes out, and Ian keeps dancing, dancing. _This_ is what he misses when he’s bartending- the roll of his hips, the heavy beat of the song, the sweat dripping down his forehead. He’ll have to drag Mickey out to a club some night to feel this, because this? This is great. 

He’s great. 

When Ian wakes up, he’s on Dan’s nice couch, the cool of the leather feeling good against his skin. His lips are dry and his head hurts and he feels sluggish, as if his body weighs a million pounds. He lets out a long groan and squints against the morning sun, cursing out Dan’s giant windows. 

He sits up, his head pounding, and grasps at it as if that will help. He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and glances around him once his eyes have adjusted to the light. He spies Brandon draped over the loveseat, his mouth open as he sleeps. 

Ian stumbles to his feet. He doesn't feel nauseous, like he would if drank, which means he just took a shit ton of drugs. 

Dan appears then, looking just as shitty as Ian feels, his eyes red and his skin pale. 

“How’d you sleep?” Dan asks, his voice croaky. 

Ian shrugs, and plops down heavily on the stool behind the kitchen counter. 

“You passed the fuck out, man,” Dan continues. “Right in the middle of a song.” He scoffs and runs a hand through his hair. “Want some water?”

“Sure,” Ian manages. His mouth feels like cotton. 

“Noah’s puking his guts out right now, and Tristian left early. Guess he decided sleeping with Jake was a mistake,” Dan says, chuckling as he pours two glasses of water. He hands one of them to Ian, and Ian takes a sip, letting out a sigh. 

“You were wild last night,” Dan comments, leaning up against the lip of the sink. “You’re a really fucking good dancer.”

“Thanks,” Ian says weakly.

“No, I’m serious! You would make a good dancer.”

Ian sighs. “And let men grope me? Yeah, no thanks.”

Dan shakes his head, then winces at the movement. “It’s not _that_ bad. There’s strict rules about not getting too handsy, and there’s bounces _everywhere_. I danced a few times. Real fucking good tips, too, better than bartending. But you’re amazing, man. It’s like your body just knows the music.”

“Yeah, well, Mick would kill me if I ever took it up.”

Dan smirks. “Well, he wouldn’t have to know, would he?”

Just then, his phone rings, and both of them wince at the sound. 

“Fuck,” Dan sighs, but answers it anyway. “What’s up?”

Ian takes a sip of his water and contemplates taking another hit of coke. His head hurts too fucking much and he’s so fucking tired, maybe just a hit of energy wouldn’t be too bad. He’s never taken molly before, Lip drilled it into him, hard, to never touch it, and now he understands why. The aftereffects are shit. 

“Oh, sure,” Dan says then to whoever's on the phone. “Yeah, sure, I’ll ask him. Fine. Bye.” He hangs up, then turns to Ian. “That was Adam. Apparently, there’s a big night tonight at the Fairy Tail. A bunch of producers and directors from some porno are in town and booked a bunch of dancers, more than Adam has.”

“What’s the Fairy Tail?” Ian interrupts. 

“The other location, at Boystown,” Dan tells him. “Adam wants a bunch of boys from the White Swallow to head over there tonight at 6. He asked if you could go. These guys tip huge. Like $50 each huge. You game?”

Ian considers it. He should probably go home, freshen up, sleep off the remnants of the molly. But Dan has a shower and a bed here, does he not? Not to mention his house is a lot closer to Boystown than Canaryville ever will be. And $50 tips sounds so fucking amazing. So Ian grins, lifting the water glass to his mouth again. 

“Sure. Why the fuck not?”

***

Usually, when Mickey wakes up, he’s either snuggled up against Ian with his head tucked under his boyfriend’s chin, or his back to his chest, with their legs entangled, their arms wrapped around each other, surrounded by _warmth_ and _love_. 

Today, though, he wakes up alone. 

Ian didn’t come home last night. 

This had been one of Mickey’s fears, that Ian would suddenly realize he doesn’t want this, doesn’t want him, and would up leave them. It hurts. 

Aileen can tell Ian’s missing, as she stares around the room with big eyes, chirping out “Papa?” every now and then. 

The sixth time she does it, Mickey can’t take it anymore. He’s halfway through getting one of her arms through its sleeve, and he snaps. 

“Jesus christ, Aileen, _stop it_!” he explodes. She goes silent, staring at him, her eyes wide, and doesn't say another peep. 

Mickey’s heart clenches. He didn’t mean it, _god,_ he didn’t mean it. He tries to tell her that, pressing her against his chest and whispering “sorry,” over and over again, but she doesn't respond. 

His mood is worsened when, at breakfast, Mandy asks, “Where’s Ian?” and he has to grit his teeth and snap back, “Fuck if I know.”

He lets Aileen play with her blocks after breakfast, then grabs a pack of cigarettes and disappears into the bathroom. His hands are shaking as he sits on the toilet, not even using it, and lights one up. 

Where the fuck could Ian be? 

Did he fucking go home with another man after his shift? 

Is he dead in an alley somewhere? 

Maybe the L broke down and he had to walk home and died of hypothermia on the way. 

Why didn’t he text him?

The nicotine is doing nothing to calm his nerves, so he lights up a second cigarette, just as the bathroom door swings open and Mandy stomps in. She’s wearing her ugly diner outfit, orange tights, orange dress with a fucking school girl collar, and a stupid hat with _Waffle House_ stitched on it and a stuffed squirrel on the top. 

“Ey-aye- what that- can I take a shit in private, please?” he demands, because he’s got his pants around his ankles and his sister just fucking _walked in on him._ This house needs more goddamn locks

Mandy has the audacity to make a disgusted face at him, and if _he’s_ the one who opened the door, not her. 

“Douchebag, go find your boyfriend,” she sighs. 

“Get the fuck out, close the door!” he snaps, trying to strain forward to grab onto the door, but Mandy ignores him. 

“He’s not answering any of my texts, and you’re not gonna mope around all day for him!”

Giving up on trying to reach the door, Mickey takes the cigarette out of his mouth and glares up at his sister. “What the fuck you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Mandy sneers. “You really gonna sit here all day, chain-smoking when you should be looking for Ian? So go find him. I gotta go to work.”

“Not my fucking problem,” Mickey snaps at her, shaking his head. 

“You know what?” Mandy sighs, then leans forward and snatches the cigarette right out from between his fingers. “Nothing’s ever your problem. For once, you know, make something your problem. He’s _your_ fucking boyfriend!” she adds, stomping off, leaving the bathroom door wide open. 

“The fuck does a squirrel have to do with waffles anyway?” he throws after her, then tries to reach for the door again, but fails. “Fuck,” he swears. “Mandy!” 

He hears the door slam, so grumbling, he stands up, his pants around his ankles and manages to slam the door shut. “Fucking bitch,” he bites out. 

But her words swirl around his head. _Go find him. He’s_ your _fucking boyfriend._

He grabs Aileen from the living room and brings her back to his room, letting her play in there instead while he takes a shower. He needs to find Ian. Needs to make sure he’s okay. 

Maybe he overreacted a little. Ian’s probably just… getting breakfast. Yeah. That’s it. Unless he got picked up by the MPs. He showers, making sure to scrub himself extra hard because if he’s going to some sparkly gay bar, he doesn’t want to get judged by all the fags in there. He grabs Kenyatta’s pink soap he finds in the shower and scrubs it over himself, wrinkling his nose up at the smell. Like fucking flowers or some shit. 

He dries off, then towels off his hair and makes his way back to his room, where he finds Aileen trying to climb on top of the dresses, so he gently pries her off and distracts her with a block tower. He’s pulling on his best button-up and running a hand through his hair to smooth it back when he hears shouting from the living room that doesn't sound like any one who lives there, so he goes to investigate. 

It’s Kev, shouting at Colin about how he should work for the city while he just sits and watches TV. 

“Ey,” Mickey calls to him. “The hell you doing here?”

Kev stomps over, looking desperate. “I need a gun.”

Mickey can’t help but smirk at that. He can do guns. What he can’t do is his boyfriend not coming home last night. 

“Who you gonna kill?”

He leads Kev into his room, where Aileen’s rolling around on his bed with her stuffed lion, babbling to it. 

“Are you wearing cologne?” Kev asks then, frowning. 

“Nah, it’s Kenyatta’s perfume-soap shit,” Mickey replies. 

“You use another dude’s soap?” Kev demands. 

“So what?”

“It’s got pubes on it!”

Mickey grimaces. “No, it doesn't.”

“Yes it does!” Kev insists. “What guy doesn't have pubes on his soap?”

“My soap doesn't have pubes on it!”

“Well, obviously you’re not washing your pubes,” is the conclusion Kev comes up with. 

“You came all the way down here just to talk about my pubes?” Mickey asks, his eyebrows raising. Seriously? This is the conversation they’re having right now?

Kev glares at him. “Just gimme a gun.”

Mickey sighs and jerks open the top drawer of his dresser. He might have sold his automatics, but he’s still got a shit ton of handguns left, and it takes him a while to find one he doesn’t really care about to give to Kev. He grabs a shitty revolver, and hands it to him. 

“You live in a borough on the Southside. How the fuck do you not have a gun?” he asks, pouring out some bullets into his palm from a little glass dish. 

“Not everyone’s a thug,” Kev responds, taking the gun from him.

“Whatcha need it for, anyway?” Mickey presses. He spies a fake police badge and picks it up, just in case he runs into any trouble at the White Swallow. 

“Alibi got robbed,” Kev mutters, fitting the bullets into the gun with more practice than Mickey would’ve given him credit for. “They stole the keg that I keep the money in.”

Mickey blinks. “Wait, wait, wait, the Rub N’ Tug money?”

“Considering it’s the only money I’m pulling in these days, yeah.”

“You keep that in a fucking keg?” Mickey demands. 

“I don’t trust the banks,” Kev replies as if that solves anything. It fucking does not. 

“Kev, that’s my money!” 

“No, it’s _my_ money, with 30% going to you.”

“30%?!” Mickey explodes. “Who came up with that? We’re 50/50!”

“Bullshit,” Kev chuckles. “50/50, it’s my bar.”

“My whores!” Mickey insists. 

“Yeah, well get your ass down there and protect your whores! You’re supposed to be providing security.”

“Not for 30%, I’m not,” Mickey scoffs out. 

“What’s going on?” Svetlana demands, appearing in the doorway, drawn by the yelling. 

“Steven Segal here let somebody steal all our cash,” Mickey snaps, gesturing to Kev’s ridiculous ponytail. 

“That’s because your pube-loving husband wasn’t doing his job,” Kev throws back, and Mickey flips him off. Fuck him for losing his money. And fuck Ian for not coming home. 

He grabs Aileen from his bed, and she lets out a soft noise of protest. He settles her down in his crib while Kev studies the gun. He’ll put her down for her nap now and come back in an hour or so. He shouldn’t be too long. 

“Hey, where are you going?” Svetlana demands when he brushes past her. 

“I gotta take care of something important,” he tells her, then turns to Kev. “I’ll be down to the bar to protect your 7 foot ass, soon as I can.”

“No, we cannot work if it’s dangerous,” Svetlana protests, a hand on her stomach. 

“It’s not dangerous,” he tries. “It’s not gonna get robbed twice in a day. If it does,” he adds to Kev. “Can you please shoot them in the fucking face this time?”

He stomps away, grabbing his jacket from the kitchen table and passes by Colin on his way out. “Watch over Aileen,” he grunts out to his brother. “If she wakes up, just try to calm her down. I’ll be back in an hour.” 

Colin lets out a noise of affirmation, so Mickey steps outside. His fingers itch for a cigarette, but he ignores the need and makes his way up north. 

He’s feels so fucking out of place, walking past people in yoga pants and carrying brand-name coffee cups. He has no fucking idea how Ian does this everyday. 

Mickey types the name of the club Ian works at into his phone, and follows the directions to a small door nestled in between two stores. 

_This is where people go to get fucking knifed,_ he thinks as he swings the door open. It leads to a small, cramped hallway that turns a corner and leads to a flight of stairs. Mickey’s thinking he’s going to get caught and killed here and maybe that’s what happened to Ian, but then the staircase opens up into a rather large club, with high ceilings and a huge fucking bar right in the middle. 

There’s a few guys hanging around, even though it’s the middle of the fucking day, in small groups, talking to each other. Mickey passes some guy at the bar who’s got absolutely no muscle on him, wiping down the counter, and two guys completely lip-locked, and shakes his head. These fags have no shame. 

Some bassy song is playing, the whiny woman’s voice making Mickey’s ears bleed. He has no idea where the fuck he’s going, he’s just wandering aimlessly, so he’s nearly relieved when he hears someone say, “Looking fine.”

Mickey stops in his tracks to stare at the man who spoke to him. He’s a fat fucker, heavier than probably a fucking truck, with greasy hair and a beard and a suit, stirring his drink with his fucking pinky out. 

“Fuck off,” Mickey snaps at him. 

“I like ‘em rough,” the other guy says, then glances to his buddies. “I’m Scott. You wanna get out of here?”

Like Mickey could care any fucking less. “No I don’t want to-” he stops, realizing that it’s just going to be a losing battle, and holds up the picture of Ian he got from before he left for the army instead. “You seen this kid?”

“Oh, you like them skinny,” the fat guy sighs. “I could lose 30 pounds in you wanted.”

Mickey highly doubts that. “30 pounds? Maybe in your ass, man. Where’s the manager?”

The man doesn’t say anything, just points behind himself at the guy on the other side of the bar, who’s bent over some paperwork. 

Mickey moves over to him, trying to get away from fatty as quick as he can. 

“Yo, you the manager?” he asks the man as he makes his way over. 

“Who’s asking?” the guy sighs, still buried in his paperwork. He’s got a ridiculous mustache and his hair needs to be gelled down. Mickey hates him immediately. 

“Since you just saw me speaking, I’m gonna take a wild stab it was me.” He holds out the picture of Ian for him to see. “You seen this kid? His name’s Ian.”

The guy looks at the photo for a solid 2 seconds, then goes back to his papers. “Never saw him before.”

 _Okay._ So that’s how he wants to play. 

“Why don’t you take a look again? He works here, so I’m pretty sure you have.”

The manager sighs and turns to him again. “Look, I can’t keep track of every twink who comes and goes in this place, alright?”

Mickey worries his bottom lip with his teeth. He’s about ready to pound his asshole’s face in. “Okay. _This_ twink has been missing for about 9 hours now, not getting in contact with anyone.”

“Look, you little tweaker,” the manager snaps. “You think you’re the first one to come in here, boo-hooing about some cocktail slut who jacked you off in the bathroom-” Mickey glances around to make sure he doesn't have an audience- “told you it was true love, and then disappeared? Trust me. You’re not. So why don’t you just buy yourself a drink and fall in love with somebody else?”

Okay. 

He grabs the back of the faggot’s head and slams him down onto the counter of the bar, making the guy cry out at his hook nose connects sharply with the stone. 

“Now, I know you know where he is, dick breath,” Mickey says, leaning down to speak to him quietly. The man gasps out, pressing against his bleeding nose with his fingers. “So you’re gonna tell me, or I’m gonna shut this cum-hole down over possession, intent to sell, and prostitution.” He grabs the fake police badge out of his pocket and slams it down next to the guys’ nose, still holding onto his hair. “Okay?”

The manager’s eyes stare at the badge, and he blurts out, “He’ll be at our other location tonight. Fairy Tail, in Boystown. I don’t know where he is right now, though. His shift won’t start until 7.”

“Thank you,” Mickey says. He pats the guy on the head a few times, then grabs his faggoty-ass mustach for the hell of it and ruffles it, making the guy wince. “That so difficult?”

He grabs the badge and the picture of Ian, and gets the hell out of there. 

Aileen’s still asleep by the time he makes it back to the Milkovich house, and both Kev and Svetlana are gone. 

“Where’d you go?” Colin asks him around a beer. 

“None of your fucking buisness,” Mickey replies, shrugging off his jacket. 

“Where’s Ian?”

“None of your fucking buisness.”

So. 

Ian’s taken up a job at some other location that night, but that still doens’t mean that Mickey has any fucking idea where he is right now. He collapses on his bed and grips his hair. He needs to punch something, _anything._

_Fucking Ian._

Is he aware that Mickey’s losing his fucking mind right now, that Aileen misses him so fucking much? 

_Where the fuck is he?_

When Aileen wakes up from her nap, he straps her into her stroller and packs them both lunches and a few of her toys, then heads over to the Rub N’ Tug. He needs to distract himself until that night, when he can head over to the Fairy Tail (what kinda dumb fucking name is that?) and finally find Ian. 

Sure enough, the Rub N’ Tug doesn't get broken into a second time. The girls are still nervous, though, casting glances over their shoulders when they should be jerking men off. 

A few of them try to play with Aileen during their breaks, and he snaps at them until they slink away, shooting daggers at him. 

Fuck them, fuck Ian. 

Aileen takes her afternoon nap in Mickey’s arms, sticking her thumb in her mouth as she passes out, her body draped heavily over his. Mickey doesn't mind. He needs the close contact now. 

Ian’s been gone for 15 hours when he finally closes up the Rub N’ Tug, dragging a very excited Aileen home. She always gets pumped up when she’s around a look of people, just another thing that she’s inherited from Ian- the extreme extrovertedness. She really fucking _whined_ when Mickey chased off the last whore who tried to play with her, reaching her arms out to her, and then turning to Mickey and pouting until he picked her up. 

She’s babbling nonsense now, bouncing in his arms, and Mickey wonders if it’s too early to put her in a sport. Probably. 

Dinner drags on and on, and Mickey can feel anxiety twisting in his stomach. What if he gets to the club and Ian’s not there? He’s prepared to run around the entire fucking city, looking for his boyfriend. 

Finally, he bathes Aileen (which takes twice as long as it should), feeds her a bottle of warm milk, reads to her, and settles her down for the night. He stares at her after he snaps off the light, studying the way she rolls over and pulls the blanket tighter around herself. He swallows the lump in his throat. 

She’s so fucking perfect. 

She’s the reason why he needs to find Ian, _now._ Alone. At some gay club. 

He wishes Ian could’ve worked somewhere else, _anywhere_ else as he slides into the club, trying not to look shady. He’s never been in a club after dark, and now he knows why. 

It’s nearly pitch-black inside, save for the random flashes of light that Mickey swears are going to give him seizures. There’s too many fucking _people_ around, pressing close into him, leering at him as if he’s just a piece of meat. It’s way too fucking dark and too crowded, and he can’t see shit, so he spends nearly 15 minutes just walking around, trying to pick out a flash of ginger hair. 

No one at the bar looks like Ian, and he’s beginning to think that the faggoty manager lied to him, but then he spies his boyfriend. 

Dancing. 

On another man. 

Hot rage shoots through Mickey at the image of moving his fucking hips in sinful ways that he only should be doing around Mickey, of him running his hands up and down the man’s legs. Mickey has to take a minute, clenching his fists, trying not to deck someone, and he watches as the man holds a hand above Ian’s head, something clasped in his fingers, and Ian follows his hand up, uncoiling his head like a snake to take whatever the fuck the man is giving him with his tonuge. 

Mickey’s had enough. He makes his way over, shoving some faggot out of the way, and smacks the man on his shoulder, hard. Ian startles, and he clenches his jaw when he sees the man’s hands on _his_ boyfriend’s chest. 

“Time’s up, lovebirds,” he bites out. “Get up.” For a second, Ian doesn’t move, just staring at him in shock, his eyes lined with heavy pencil. “That means get the fuck up! It’s my turn.” Ian gets the message and jumps up quickly, just in time for Mickey to haul the old man to his feet and shove him away. 

He stumbles, then turns back around and has the fucking audacity to say to Ian, “I’ll look for you later, Curtis,” in a heavy accent. 

Ian glances down, rubbing his eyebrow. 

“Curtis?” Mickey snaps at him. “That your fucking stage name?”

“What are you doing here?” Ian asks, moving in close to be heard over the beat of the song. He’s twitchy, bouncing on the balls of his feet, obviously on something. He’s wearing a fucking ridiculous feather boa over a black tank top, his strong shoulders on display, and Mickey knows he would find it sexy in literally any other setting. 

“I just spent the whole day looking for your coked-out ass,” Mickey snaps at him. “Where the fuck were you, Ian?”

“I was… at a friend’s,” Ian says, blinking quickly and looking away. “Got a gig here. Good tips.”

“What- rubbing your dick over some old faggot?” Mickey sneers. “Fuck this. We’re going home.”

He tries to grab Ian’s hand, but his boyfriend remains solid, refusing to leave. 

“What the fuck, Ian?”

“I need to keep working,” Ian hisses out at him. “My shift isn’t up for another 4 hours.”

Mickey stares at him and shakes his head in disbelief. “Look- no. I’m worried about you, okay? You didn’t come home last night. Aileen misses you.”

He tries, but Ian doesn’t seem to be interested, wiping his nose and still blinking, staring around at more guys.

“Hello?” Mickey says, waving his hand in his face. “The fuck? I can’t talk to you like this. Can we go outside? These fudge packers got so much snow up your beaker, you’re tweaking like a little bitch.” 

Ian’s head snaps up sharply at that, and he glares at Mickey. “I need to keep working,” he snaps. “Gimme 4 hours. I’ll be home tonight.” With that, he turns around. 

No. 

Mickey isn’t letting him go that easily. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he blurts out, grabbing onto Ian’s shoulder as he tries to walk away and turning him around forcefully. He won’t meet Mickey’s eyes. “Look, you need to get the fuck home, alright? You scared me, Ian. I didn’t know where the fuck you were.”

Some huge ass bouncer takes that moment to grab Mickey roughly, spinning him away from Ian. 

“Is everything okay here, Curtis?” he asks Ian quietly, who just nods. 

“Everything’s great, Roger,” he replies. 

“Good. ‘Cause the guy over there looks like he may want a dance,” the bouncer says, pointing off in the distance. Ian follows his finger with his gaze, then turns back to Mickey. 

“I’m on it,” he says, then Mickey watches him walk away, rage boiling in his stomach. 

“Okay,” Mickey calls after him. “Don’t choke on any gray pubes.” He mimes a blowjob, and the bouncer takes a threatening step towards him. “Relax, shaft. I’m leaving.”

He sees himself outside, his hands shaking. He leans up against the outside wall of the club and watches his breath blow away in the air. 

What the fuck is wrong with Ian? 

This isn’t like him at all. He’s always been so responsible, taking care of his siblings, taking care of Aileen, and now he’s dancing and grinding on strangers, which is specifically the things Mickey told him not to do when he got a job bartending. 

Not to mention, he’s on some pretty serious shit. Obviously crack, ‘cause that’s easy, but some other shit too, something that makes him constantly need to be moving.

Ian doesn’t do drugs. Weed, sure, everyone does weed, but not hard drugs. Mickey’s seen him turn his nose up whenever Colin or Iggy snort whatever shit they bought off the streets. So what the fuck is he on? Maybe one of the other boys made him take it. But that’s not like Ian either. He’s so fucking stubborn, does things becuase _he_ wants to, not because of what others thing. 

Mickey digs around in his pocket and pulls out his cigarettes and a lighter. He needs the smoke to calm him down, stop his racing heart. He feels like he’s going to pass out. He’s looked for and worried about the entire day for Ian, only to find him grinding on another man, drugs racing through his veins. 

Mickey has no idea how long he stands there, chain-smoking and watching men walk by, but eventually Ian pops out, dressed in only a tank top and jeans, with some old man with white fucking hair hanging off his arm. Mickey watches them as Ian checks something on his phone, his head looking like it weighs a million pounds. 

He’s planning on how to intercept them when the old faggot fucking _licks_ up Ian’s cheek. Mickey doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything as _disgusting,_ and takes the opportunity to grab the man by the back of his jacket and yank him away from his boyfriend. 

“Why don’t you molest someone your own age, you geritol fuck?” he growls at him, then punches him straight in the dick. 

The guy yells out, hunching over himself, and Mickey grabs him by the ends of his ugly-ass scarf, pulling them tight to yank his head up. 

“You’re an animal!” the guy accuses. 

“I’m not the one groping and licking on underage boys, am I?” Mickey snaps. 

“We’re just having fun!” 

“Shut the fuck up!” He can’t believe this fucking guy. “Now give Curtis some money before he calls the cops on you.” Might as well make some cash out of this. The guy looks loaded. 

Sure enough, he grabs his wallet and digs around, grabbing some $20 and shoving them at Mickey. 

“Yeah, good, thank you,” he says over the man’s relentless stuttering, then shoves at him. “Get the fuck out of here.” He kicks him in the ass, just for good measure. “Get out of here!” The man runs across the street, one hand out, his knees knocking together, looks so ridiculous that Mickey throws after him, “And learn how to run like a dude!”

He lets out a sigh and bends down to pick up the money that had fluttered to the ground. As he does so, he notices Ian, collapsed in the snow, curled in on himself, and his heart clenches. 

“Jesus christ, Ian,” he mutters to no one in particular, and moves over to him, shaking him gently. “Hey, hey.” Ian doesn’t respond, passed out. Mickey sighs and manoeuvres him up, wrapping his arms around his waist and hoisting him up onto his shoulder. He grabs the backs of Ian’s knees, standing up once he’s draped over him. 

Ian’s cold as fuck, and Mickey wonders if he would’ve died if he left him there. The L is looking like a pretty fucking piss poor choice as he’s crossing the street, but suddenly a car pulls up right in front of him. 

“You called for an Uber?”

Mickey has no idea what the fuck he’s saying, but he’ll take it anyway. “Yeah, I called for a Yoober.”

He lays Ian in the back seat and climbs in next to him, the guy driving giving him weird looks. He gives him his address, then shrugs off his jacket and drapes it across Ian’s bare shoulder. The ride is so much fucking quicker in a car, and Mickey passes off some of the bills the geriatric threw at him, picking up Ian once again. 

The house is still as he shoves his way inside, Ian’s weight starting to take a toll on him. He struggles to their bedroom, and flops Ian over into the bed in an undignified manner. 

Mickey straightens up, running a hand through his hair and sighing. Ian’s eyes are shut and he’s barely breathing, whatever drugs he took still coursing through his veins. He risks a glance over at Aileen- she’s still asleep. Good. 

He doesn't need her to see her father like this, whatever _this_ is. 

Mickey slides Ian’s shoes off his feet and maneuvers him until he’s on his side and underneath the covers. He grabs an extra blanket, just in case, and throws it over him. 

It’s then when he hears soft movement at the door and glances up to see Svetlana, still wet from her shower, standing in the doorway in nothing but a towel. She stares at Ian, then stares at Mickey, then leaves. 

Mickey blinks and rubs at the sudden itch on his eyebrow. He lets out a shaky breath as he stares at Ian, lying there, dead to the world, looking so fucking vunerable. 

Mickey cuts off the lights and crawls in next to him. Ian's so fucking cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, neither of them are doing so hot here. In the next chapter (which should be up by Monday) they *talk* about their feelings.  
> Also, for anyone wanting to get a better understanding, when I write about Aileen babbling, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_cZi0VyYms) is what I mean.


	6. Hope Springs Paternal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian cocks an eyebrow at him, and Mickey’s instantly drawn closer, licking his lips as they’re suddenly dry.   
> “Will you suck my dick?” Ian asks when he’s practically standing between his knees. He stares up at him, his eyes dark, smirking, and Mickey can’t say no.   
> He can never say no to Ian. (do people even read these? lol)  
> 4.08

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: references to drug use and not a whole lot of Aileen in this chapter. :( 
> 
> We're about halfway done now! Just to get a little look-see of what I'm planning on doing with this series- I've already started season 5, and I'm going to do season 6, 7, and a part between seasons 7 and 8 (for timeline reasons), plus a few one-shots to finish everything out. So stick around!

Ian’s head feels like it’s full of cotton when he wakes up. 

He’s on his bed, nestled in underneath the covers, still dressed in the clothes he wore yesterday, but someone took his shoes off. 

_God,_ his head hurts so bad. He lets out a groan and wipes his face on his pillow, trying to make the pain go away. When that doesn’t help, he lifts his head up, startling when he sees Svetlana seated in the chair across the room from him, glaring. 

He quickly scans the room, but neither Mickey nor Aileen are anywhere to be found. 

“Morning,” he says to Svetlana, shooting a grin at her. She looks about ready to kill him. “доброе утро,” he tries, attempting to lighten the mood. 

“It is afternoon,” she says lowly. “You sleep all day.”

_Oh._

He sits up, and the movement makes his head pound more, but he manages to push himself to his feet and stumble to the bathroom. His joints feel like jelly. A shower would be nice. He turns the water on and strips, throwing his clothes carelessly on the ground. Ian steps into the shower, letting the lukewarm water wash over him. His eyes sting as his eyeliner gets washed away, and he rubs at them. 

Fuck. What the hell happened last night? He knows yesterday, after his shift, he went over to Dan’s house and must’ve done a shit ton of good drugs, because he remembers waking up yesterday morning with the same feeling he’s feeling now. Then… fuck, there had been that call with Adam. The special night at the Fairy Tail. 

Shit, he had danced for money on strangers’ laps, hadn’t he? 

Ian’s thoughts are interrupted by Svetlana ripping back the shower curtain and holding a hammer up to his chin, murder in her eyes. 

“I have baby soon!” she yells at him. “I cannot work.”

“Jeez,” Ian says, turning away from her hammer. Isn’t that a little excessive? 

“You must earn money to take care of us.” She holds the hammer up a little more, forcing Ian to tip his head back. “No more drugs. You make good money. You disappear again? I kill you. I bash your orange head.” She gets her point across with a jab to his chin, and he groans. “ты понимаешь?” she shouts, and he doesn’t need to know Russian to get what she’s saying. 

“Yeah,” he says quickly, anything to get the hammer away from her chin. 

She glares at him as she slowly steps away, then her eyes flick down to his dick and she sneers, leaving him alone in the bathroom. 

After the threat to his life, the shower does him wonders. It makes him feel more awake, more fresh. Afterwards, he wraps a towel around himself and stumbles back into his room. Someone charged his phone overnight, as it died yesterday, and he sees a text from Lip which reads- _Fiona got her preliminary hearing. House arrest._

Ian knows what he’s going to do. Mickey and Aileen are gone, no doubt Mickey took her to work at the Rub N’ Tug, and it’s not like he’s going to stay in a house with an angry, pregnant Russian lady. So he tugs on warm clothes and a beanie and wraps his jacket around himself and heads over to the Gallagher house.

The air is crisp and cool, fresh snow on the ground, and he pauses by the fence, resting his hand on it, just staring up at the house. God, he missed it. He loves the Milkovich house, of course, but the Gallagher house was his first home. It holds memories of him and his siblings and his parents and even of his daughter. 

Fiona’s in the kitchen when he makes his way in, the door unlocked as usual. She’s staring down at something on the counter, not paying attention, so he shuts the door extra hard and she jerks her head up, her face immediately splitting into a smile. 

“What?” she gasps out, practically running at Ian. He can’t help but grin back and holds his arms out to her. 

“Come here,” he chuckles and she barrels into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

“Oh my god! Oh my god, is this for real?” she asks. “Are you really back?”

“For real,” Ian says. “Have been for two weeks.”

“Oh my god, you bastard, I missed you so much!” She pulls back and stares at him, then shoves him roughly. “You’re a piece of shit! Two weeks? What the hell were you doing?”

“Laying low,” Ian says, tugging his hat off. “MPs were after me.” He makes his way into the kitchen, pulling off his gloves as he does so, and Fiona follows after him. 

“You ran away from the army?” she asks. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” he says. He _doesn’t._ He missed his family too much to. “I left ‘cause stuff got nuts.”

“What stuff?” Fiona asks, frowning. 

Ian sighs. “Oh, the military trying to control me.”

“Well, isn’t that what the military does?”

“Got sick of it,” he says simply. “Missed everyone. But hey, I met some amazing folks, got all these great ideas. I’m a different person.” Fiona smiles at him, and it warms his heart. “Hey, we can talk about that later, right?”

Fiona shakes her head and grins. “Sure.” Ian can’t help but lean up against the counter and stare at her. God, he missed her. It’s nice to see her smile again. Seeing her has made him even more awake. He feels _good._

“Do you want a sandwich?” Fiona asks suddenly, gesturing to a peanut butter sandwich on the counter that she must’ve been eating. 

Ian’s suddenly aware of how hungry he is. “Yeah! Oh, I’m starving.”

“It’s yours,” she says, moving away to grab orange soda and a cup. 

He takes a seat at the counter and takes a bite of the sandwich, everything feeling so familiar to him. He should talk to Mickey about visiting the Gallagher house more. Maybe they could have dinners over here once a week or something. He’s missed it so much. 

As Fiona’s taking the cap off of the soda bottle, he notices her ankle bracelet above a pair of converse sneakers that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her wear. 

“Nice hardware,” he says, gesturing to them. 

“Huh, yeah,” she responds, scoffing. “My winter boots don’t fit. All I can get on are tennis shoes and fuck-me pumps.”

And holy fuck, if that isn’t the funniest thing he’s ever heard her say, he doesn’t know what is. So he laughs. It feels good to laugh. He’s been so fucking stressed lately, stressed or high, that it feels nice to just let go. 

“Are you okay?” Fiona asks, smiling. 

“Yeah,” he says, taking the cup from her, still giggling. “Yeah, great, why?” And he is. He is great. 

She shrugs. “You just seem a little caffeinated.”

“I quit smoking,” he says simply. 

Fiona nods, leaning on her elbows on the counter. “So, what’s next for you?” she asks. 

“Oh, I got a job,” he says, smiling up at her. “At a club. Bartending. Mick isn’t too happy with it, but it’s good money, and the tips are great.”

Fiona’s eyebrows raise. “Bartending?” she echoes. “Don’t you have to be 21?”

Ian shrugs. “They don’t ask too many questions.” 

Fiona stares at him longer, and he starts to get uncomfortable. Then she seems to shake herself and says, “Hey, how’s Aileen?”

Ian leaves nearly an hour later, while it’s starting to get dark and he knows Mickey will be back from work soon with Aileen. He didn’t tell Fiona what happened yesterday, but he had certainly mulled it over. 

He had made a mistake. And a bad one. He hadn’t seen what was wrong with going to Dan’s after his shift on Monday- Dan was a friend and he was having a party, why shouldn’t he have gone? But he should have texted Mickey and told him where he was going. He sees that now. Then Mickey wouldn’t have had to have been so worried about him. 

And maybe he shouldn’t have agreed to dance at the Fairy Tail, but he made good money that night. So he’s going to head home and apologize to Mickey. And Mickey will forgive him.

That’s not what happens, though. 

He’s home for only about 3 minutes, alone, because Svetlana’s off somewhere, when Mickey stomps in with Aileen in a stroller. 

Aileen spots him first, instantly perking up and holding her arms out for him. “Papa!” she chirps, and Mickey jerks his head up, shooting daggers at Ian with his eyes. 

Ian strides over and makes a quick work of unbuckling Aileen and lifting her up, hugging her tightly. “Hey, princess,” he sighs, glad that she’s back in his arms. She babbles happily, as if she’s telling him a story, clinging tightly to his shirt. “Mick,” he tries then, glancing up, but his boyfriend isn’t having it. 

“Fuck you, Ian,” Mickey spits, shaking his head. He stomps away into their bedroom and slams the door. The house rattles. 

Ian lets out a sigh and smoothes a hand over Aileen’s hair, gently setting her down on the couch. He grabs one of her stuffed animals and hands it to her, saying, “Why don’t you play here for a little bit, okay? Daddy and I need to talk.”

He knows the door isn’t locked- the only lockable door in the entire house is Mandy’s, but he knocks anyway. Mickey doesn’t respond, so he hesitantly pushes open the door. 

Mickey’s sitting on the edge of their bed, staring down at his hands in his lap, but he snaps his head up when Ian steps in the room, glaring at him. 

“Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was for you, Ian?” he says, his voice dangerously low. “I had no clue where you were. You could’ve been dead or mugged or fucking someone else.”

“I know,” Ian tries. “I’m sorry.”

“Where the fuck were you?!” Mickey suddenly yells, and Ian winces. He knows Mickey had every right to be mad at him. But that doesn't make this shit any easier. 

“I was at a party.”

“A party?” Mickey scoffs. 

“One of the guys, Dan, invited me. Me and a few other boys. It was fine. I was safe.”

Mickey crosses his arms and scowls up at Ian. “Who’d you fuck?”

Ian’s taken back by that. “What? No one. We danced, did some molly, but that was _it._ I woke up alone on his couch. I didn’t sleep with anyone, I swear.”

But Mickey doesn’t seem to be concerned about that anymore. “Molly?” he spits out. “Even I don’t do those drugs, Gallagher. Was that what you were on when I picked you up at the club? Was that why you were leaving with that man?”

Ian frowns. “What man?”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. 

Mickey’s practically shaking with rage. Ian can hear his teeth grinding together. “The fucking grandpa you left the club with, Ian. I waited for 4 goddamn hours after your bouncer kicked me out, and you appeared with some geriatric fucker with his hand down your fucking pants!” 

“I… don’t remember that.” He _doesn’t._ He doesn’t remember how he got back to the Milkovich house, but he assumes Mickey must’ve brought him home. 

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Yeah, ‘cause of the fucking drugs, right? You were fucking hammered, Ian. Grinding up on disgusting men for money.” His lip curls. 

“Let me explain,” Ian pleads. “My manager, Adam, called Dan up after the party, told me there was a huge event at the club’s other location- Fairy Tail. Said he needed a bunch of help, a bunch of dancers. I agreed to do it, because I knew I could make more money. I took more molly when I got there because I was so fucking tired from the night before, I didn’t know how I was going to make it through my shift. I don’t remember what happened after that, okay?”

“Doesn’t make up for the fact that you still did it,” Mickey hisses out. “Why didn’t you come home between shifts, then? Or call? Or text? Or-”

“I was sleeping, mostly,” Ian cut in. “Dan taught me how to dance. I had to be good to get good tips.”

Mickey’s hands are shaking as he runs them through his hair, tugging on the strands. Ian wants to wrap him up, smooth a hand over his back until he’s calm, until he _knows_ Ian’s sorry. 

“I can’t keep doing this,” Mickey says quietly. “You’re giving me fucking whiplash. You’re either in or out, Gallagher. Pick one.”

“In or out?” Ian echoes, confused. 

“Of this family!” Mickey yells then. “First the army, now this fucking job! You leave and then you come back, and I think everything’s fine, and then you leave again! You said you were gonna stick around, you said you were gonna be there for Aileen, but now it’s starting to feel like you don’t want this anymore!” 

_Oh._

That’s what this is about. 

Mickey seems to deflate all of a sudden, collapsing back onto the bed, dropping his head down. “So, leave if you want, but you can’t keep doing this to me. To Aileen.”

“Mickey,” Ian whispers out. He takes a seat next to him, and his heart breaks when Mickey scoots away. “I love you.”

“Yeah, fucking right,” Mickey grumbles. “You didn’t come home.”

“I’m sorry.” 

Mickey doesn’t say anything, just chews on his bottom lip, so Ian takes his face in the palms of his hands and lifts it up, moving in close and pressing their bodies together. 

“I love you,” he says again. “And I’m sorry I didn’t text. I’m sorry that I was going to go home with a stranger. I’m sorry I did molly. I’m sorry.”

He repeats the words, whispering “I’m sorry” and “I love you” over and over again as he slides their lips together, wrapping his arms around Mickey’s waist, gently laying him back on the blankets. 

“Ian,” Mickey sighs, letting Ian push him around, twining his arms around Ian’s neck, his fingers sliding through his hair.

They pull each other’s clothes off and Ian grabs a condom and lube, prepping Mickey quickly, pressing the pads of his fingers against his prostate, making his boyfriend cry out. Mickey wraps his legs around Ian as Ian presses into him, rolling his hips forward, slotting their lips together again. 

Ian goes slow and deep, letting Mickey know he’s sorry, he wants this family, he’s going to stay. _I love you. I’m sorry._

He mouths along Mickey’s collarbone, sucking bruises into his pale skin, savoring the feel of his walls around his dick, holding onto him, never letting him go. If he could, Ian knows he would stay locked with Mickey like this forever. 

Mickey’s lower lip trembles as he lets out a shaky breath when Ian rolls in particularly deep and Ian grabs onto his soft hip, digging his fingers in. 

_I love you_. 

He wraps a hand around Mickey’s dick, and Mickey does the same, and they jerk him off together, in time with Ian’s thrusts, and they spill over at the same time, and Ian thinks he blacks out for a second, the sound of rushing water filling his ears. 

He doesn’t pull out, but lays on top of Mickey, pressing him against the bed, his lips finding his neck. 

“Ian,” Mickey says after a while, and Ian hums in response. “Promise me you won’t do that again.”

Ian rises up on his hands and stares at his boyfriend. “I promise.”

“No more dancing.”

“No more dancing,” Ian agrees. 

“You’ll fucking call up Adam and tell you’re only bartending from now on.”

Ian nods. “I will.”

Mickey seems to finally relax at that, nodding, his eyes drooping. 

“I love you,” Ian says, and his heart warms when Mickey finally smiles and says it back. 

***

Mickey’s hurt. Of course he’s fucking hurt. His boyfriend disappeared for a day with no contact, and then showed up at some club, grinding on other guys. 

But Ian said he was sorry. 

He said he loved him. 

And now he’s playing with Aileen, gently holding onto her wrists as she stands, making her dance, making her squeal with laughter. 

And after that dicking Mickey just got? He forgives him. 

As soon as they cleaned up, Ian had called his boss, the same one whose head Mickey had shoved down onto the bar, to tell him he had to go back to bartending now. His boss had agreed reluctantly. Mickey doesn’t give two shits if Ian makes less money. 

He had made Ian swear off drugs, too. He saw his aunt get destroyed from molly, and he doesn’t need to watch Ian do the same. 

Ian had just chuckled, shaking his head and saying, “Don’t worry. Your bride already threatened me with a claw hammer.”

Ian’s singing to their daughter in his horrible, tone-deaf voice when he phone buzzes next to Mickey on the couch. He picks it up automatically, and sees it’s a text from Fiona- _Do you wanna come over for dinner tonight?_

He frowns. “Fiona knows you’re back?” he asks Ian, who glances up at him and nods. 

“Yeah, I went over there earlier today.”

“Ian, that’s fucking risky,” Mickey says. “What if you were seen?”

Ian just waves him off. “It’s been like a week, and the MPs haven’t come by again. It’s fine. Text her back and tell her we’ll be there.”

Work was bad enough, and the fact that now he has to socialize with Gallaghers is not helping at all. The girls are starting to get bored with the room above the Alibi, and have been venturing down into the bar between clients to play cards and chat. And Svetlana’s being pissy. She thinks she can get off easy just because she’s about to drop a patty from her fur-burger- she won’t shave, and the last guy she jerked off had complained about it. 

“I like the way God made me,” she had told him, a hand on her hip, glaring at him. 

They head over to the Gallagher’s at 6, after making sure Aileen’s all bundled up against the cold. It’ll be good for her, Mickey thinks, as she hasn’t seen her aunts and uncles in a while. 

As soon as they duck in through the back door, everyone is instantly over Ian. 

“You’re back!” Debbie says, pulling him in for a big hug. 

“Hey, guys!” Ian laughs as Carl tackles him. “I missed you guys!”

Mickey sets a wriggly Aileen down, and she toddles over to Ian, grabbing onto his pant leg. It’s like he’s a black hole, and everyone else is just matter who gets sucked into his gravitational field. Hell, Mickey feels his effects all the time. 

“Lip says you stole a helicopter!” Carl says excitedly when he pulls back. 

“Uh, I tried to, kinda tipped it, blade snapped, motor caught fire,” Ian explains. 

“Awesome!” Carl continues. “You shoot anyone?” The kid’s got a psychotic look on his face.

“I never left basic,” Ian sighs. 

“You can’t shoot anyone there?”

“You _can,_ I didn’t.” 

Carl frowns. “You shot no one, you flew nothing, why’d you even go there in the first place?”

Ian looks taken back by the question, but is saved from answering by Fiona announcing that dinner’s ready. Apparently, Lip’s been stealing trays of food from his fancy-ass college and taking them home for free dinner. Mickey has to laugh at that. Maybe he was wrong about Lip- maybe he isn’t as stuck-up as he thought. 

Dinner is loud and messy, with the Gallaghers yelling over each other about how their days were. Apparently Carl’s in trouble at school, Debbie has a boyfriend (since fucking when? Isn’t she like 13?), and Lip’s been taking Liam to college with him. The kid is doing fine, no major mental drawbacks from his cocaine injection. 

Mickey sets Aileen up in a second high chair next to him, and she instantly starts babbling at him, reaching out and making grabby hands at him. 

Liam just stares back, blinking, then glances up at Mickey, who shrugs.

“I don’t know what she wants either, kid,” he says. 

Liam grabs a piece of pasta with his fingers and holds it out to Aileen.

“Here,” he says, and she grabs it from him, cooing and shoving it in her mouth. Liam giggles, and then Aileen laughs back at him, and Mickey can’t help but smile. 

“They’re pretty cute together,” Ian says to him, spooning a scoop of lasagna on his plate. 

“Yeah, they are,” Mickey agrees. 

Dinner drags on. Debbie and Carl get into a heated fight that ends with Carl throwing parmesan cheese in Debbie’s hair and Lip yelling at both of them. Ian rests a hand on Mickey’s knee while he’s taking a long sip of water, just letting it rest there, a comforting weight. 

It isn’t until dinner’s winding down that he starts moving it up higher and higher, massaging his upper thigh, and Mickey can feel his dick twitch against his will. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mickey hisses out at Ian. “We’re at dinner with your fucking family.”

“And I need you,” Ian mutters back.

“We fucked like, an hour ago,” Mickey shoots back, but then Ian cups him right over his boxers, and he can’t help but flinch a little. _Fuck,_ that feels nice. He spreads his legs involuntarily, and Ian’s hand travels down lower, tracing over his balls, his perineum. 

“Bathroom,” Ian suddenly announces then, standing up and disappearing upstairs. No one pays him any attention. Mickey glances over at Aileen, but she’s still eating happily, babbling incoherently to Liam every now and then, as if they’re having a conversation, so he slides out of his seat and follows his boyfriend upstairs. 

He’s in his childhood bedroom, sitting on his old bed. He’s leaning back on his hands, his legs spread, and Mickey can see how hard he is from halfway down the hall. 

Ian cocks an eyebrow at him, and Mickey’s instantly drawn closer, licking his lips as they’re suddenly dry. 

“Suck my dick?” Ian asks when he’s practically standing between his knees. He stares up at him, his eyes dark, smirking, and Mickey can’t say no. 

He can never say no to Ian. 

He sinks to his knees, his hands immediately reaching for Ian’s belt. He undoes it, his belt buckle clinking, and unzips his jeans, tugging open the flaps. He shoves Ian’s boxers down just enough to get his dick out, the head already shining, the thick vein popping out. 

Mickey doesn’t waste any time in doing down on Ian. Because he wants it, _fuck_ does he want it. He hollows out his cheeks and kneads Ian’s thighs and goes deep, so deep, until the head of Ian’s cock is brushing against the back of his throat, but he doesn't manage to gag this time.

And Ian? 

Ian loves it. 

Mickey knows because Ian tells him so, panting out, “Fuck, so good, Mick, so good for me.”

The praise goes to his dick, and arousal swirls low in Mickey’s stomach. Ian’s hips lift up of their own accord, and suddenly Ian’s hand is gripping his hair, holding his head steady as he pumps his hips, rolling them almost lazily into Mickey’s mouth. 

Mickey lets Ian take what he wants. Because this is fucking amazing. Ian gets him going like nothing else- his dick is rock hard in his jeans, pressing painfully against his zipper, and he wants nothing more than to grab himself and jerk himself off until he comes in his pants like a teenager, but he understands this isn’t about him right now- this is about Ian. 

Ian tilts his head back, huffing out, “God, this _mouth,_ Mick,” and his hips snap forward harder than before, and Mickey gags then, but Ian doesn’t pull off. “So fucking hot,” he practically growls, tugging on Mickey’s hair until he gets tears in his eyes. 

Ian’s hips still, and he lets Mickey control the pace, and Mickey tries his hardest to make it the best blowjob Ian’s ever had, and soon he’s coming, exploding into Mickey’s mouth, panting with his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open on his childhood bed. 

Mickey swallows him down, all of it, then sits back on his heels and digs the heel of his hand into his dick. 

“Please,” he sighs out, because the look Ian is giving him right now makes him know that Ian is in charge right now, he gets to say when Mickey gets to come. 

Ian stares at him. And stares. And Mickey stares right back, holding his gaze, waiting, waiting. 

“Okay,” Ian says eventually, so quiet Mickey almost doesn’t hear. “Jerk yourself off.”

Mickey can’t help the gasp that leaves his mouth as he tugs his jeans open, taking his cock out and pulling on it quickly. It’s 10 times better because Ian _said_ he could, Ian’s letting him do this. 

Ian just stares down at him, eyes dark, watching Mickey’s hand flying over his dick. Mickey counts to 7 in his head, and then he’s coming, coming over his hand and jeans and the floor, panting as if he just ran a marathon. 

He hunches over himself after, his brain swirling. He can’t believe they just did that. He just sucked Ian off while Ian’s siblings and their daughter are downstairs, eating dinner peacefully. 

“Fuck,” he groans when he sees the mess he made. 

“Hey,” Ian says, quickly grabbing a tissue from the bedside table and handing it to him. “I’m sure it’s fine. I think this floor’s seen worse, don’t you?”

Mickey scoffs at that, wiping his hands off, then dabbing at the mess on his jeans. Ian tucks himself back into his pants and grabs another tissue, cleaning up the cum on the floor. 

“Can’t believe we fucking did that,” Mickey groans out, running his non-messy hand through his hair. 

Ian just grins at him. “But it was good, right?”

Mickey can’t help but smile back. “So good.”

It’s like after Ian sees his family once, he can’t get enough of them. 

Not even 3 days later, he wakes Mickey up early and drags him over to the Gallaghers’ for breakfast. Mickey would’ve loved to protest and stay in bed for another hour, but Aileen is already dressed and ready to go, so Mickey drags his ass out of bed and gets dressed while he’s still half asleep. 

Fucking Ian waking him up at fucking 7 in the morning. 

At least there’s bacon. 

But Ian didn’t even give him time to piss in the morning before he made them haul ass over to the Gallaghers’, so now he has to spend time peeing in their toilet instead of eating bacon like he should be. 

He hears voices rising from downstairs, singing some loud-ass song, and he recognizes Ian’s off-tune voice. He grumbles to himself as he flushes and washes his hands, making his way downstairs. 

“Are you people always so goddamn noisy in the morning?” he mumbles out, then freezes.

Mandy’s in the middle of the Gallagher kitchen, standing by Lip. She’s staring at him, concern written on her face. 

“What?” he snaps, glancing over at the table to check on Aileen. Ian’s feeding her some eggs, trying to teach her how to use a fork, but she’s uninterested. 

“Svetlana’s water broke,” Mandy says. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Mickey asks, moving towards the eggs. God, they look good. 

“The hospital,” she replies, as if that’s obvious.

“She’s having the baby?” Ian pipes up from the table. 

“Tell her I said good luck,” Mickey replies, scooping out some eggs for himself. 

“What, you’re not gonna go be with her?”

“Hell, no.” Why should he? They may be married, but it’s not like they’re actually together and happy, and it’s not even his kid, anyway. “I got work.”

“It’s our brother,” Mandy tries. “It’s not the baby’s fault he’s Terry’s spawn.”

“And it’s not my fault the bitch got knocked up,” Mickey throws back. And it’s _not._ He has no interest in his fucking half-brother, the son of his dad, who’s in prison, and some illegal Russian prostitute who forced Mickey to marry her. 

“You’re an asshole,” Mandy throws at him, then leaves, slamming the door behind her. 

“Congrats,” Ian says, grinning. Mickey flips him off and loads his plate up with bacon. 

“Full house, just like old times,” Fiona says, coming in from the front porch, wrapped up in a heavy jacket. “Smells good.”

Debbie gets up then, and marches up to Fiona. “You destroyed my art project- it’s completely ruined! You’re such a… bitch!” she explodes. 

“Woah, Debbie!” Lip says, and Debbie brushes past him, angrily throwing her plate in the sink. 

“She went into my room, she trashed all my stuff, and she kicked all of my clothes under the bed.”

“I asked you to clean!” Fiona throws back, and Mickey tries to hide his smirk. Looks like Debbie’s finally hit puberty. 

“Did you?!” Debbie yells. 

“She went through mine too,” Carl says. “She threw away my porn, my nunchucks, _and_ my taser! Do you know how many police dumpsters I had to go through to find that?”

Fiona sets her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “I told you to get rid of that stuff!”

Carl yells at Fiona, and Fiona yells back, and Mickey moves around them, carrying his plate over to the kitchen table as Debbie starts pulling on her coat. 

Aileen babbles to him as he sits down, holding out a piece of toast to him. 

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he says, taking it from her. She’s picked up that strange habit of giving people whatever it is she’s holding in her hands when they’re within a foot radius of her. It’s weird, but at least she’s learning to share early, he thinks. 

Lip's starting to help Liam into his jacket when Fiona starts to protest. 

“Woah, Lip, you can leave Liam here,” she says, but Lip shakes his head. 

“I got him.”

“No- I- Lip,” Fiona says, sounding desperate. 

“Look, Fiona, just get some sleep, okay? Hang out with V, relax for fuck’s sake.”

Fiona sighs, running a hand through her hair, and Ian glances at her. So Lip still doesn’t trust her to be with Liam alone. 

_Smart,_ Mickey thinks. Who knows what she could give him next. 

Debbie and Carl leave to visit Frank, who’s apparently staying at Sheila’s with the Gallaghers’ half-sister, Sammi, as his liver slowly fails, and Mickey grabs the coffee, noticing that Ian’s cup is empty. 

“Want some more?” he asks him, and Ian wordlessly holds out his mug for Mickey to refill. 

“Dada!” Aileen coos, trying to reach for the coffee pot. Ian chuckles, and strokes her head. 

“You’re a little too young for that, princess,” he says. 

“You guys got any cash you could toss my way?” Fiona asks then, her arms wrapped around herself, looking small. 

Ian sets his mug down and stands up, digging in his jeans pocket for some bills. 

“I’m working a double tonight. You wanna stop by?” he asks Mickey as he hands off the money to Fiona. 

“Yeah, sure, got nothing better to do than watch a bunch of pruny queens slap their sacs against your asscheeks,” Mickey throws at him, taking a sip of his own coffee. 

Ian chuckles, taking his seat again, and smooths a hand over Aileen's hair. 

Mickey _does_ stop by, but only to make sure no one tries anything funny with Ian. No ass grabs, no things being slipped into any free samples of drinks he takes. He’s changed his outfit since the last time Mickey saw him- now wearing gold bootie shorts and the world’s stupidest looking tie. He isn’t even wearing a fucking shirt. 

The heavy bass and the lights are starting to make Mickey’s head hurt, but he takes up a place on the other, smaller bar, watching Ian from across the club. 

Ian looks completely in his element here. He’s bobbing his head along to the music, chatting and laughing with the customers, pouring drinks expertly and quickly. Mickey can see the completely enamored look the faces of the guys at the bars as they slide Ian money across the counter top, and he fucking sticks it in his shorts, throwing them an occasional wink. 

Mickey _knows_ he’s just doing it to appeal more to them, to get more money, but it does nothing to quell the hot jealousy that’s starting to shoot through him. Ian’s _his_ boyfriend- he shouldn’t be throwing his head back at whatever the fuck these sleazy ass men are saying. 

He watches as Ian moves from one end of the bar to the other, taking orders and talking with the other bartenders. Now that he’s actually taking the time to stare at Ian without his shirt off, rather than just rushing to get his pants off and his cock inside his ass, he notices something about Ian. 

He’s skinny. Way skinnier then he should be for someone who just came back from the fucking army. Before he left, he had had giant fucking biceps that looked like they were ready to bust out of his shirt at any given moment, and thick thighs that could run for fucking miles. He’s still muscular, though now it’s more of lean muscle, giving him a rather boyish boy like he’s 13 instead of 17. 

Mickey realizes that he hasn’t seen him workout in a while. Like, seriously workout. He used to do chin-ups and push-ups and weights, and now he goes on runs. He’s lost a lot of muscle mass. He’s skinnier than Mickey now, when they used to be near equal. 

It makes his jaw clench, the fact that this job is destroying his boyfriend’s perfect physique, and it makes him clench even harder when he realizes that there’s a disgusting-ass man leaning over the bar right now, licking a 20 and reaching out, clearly getting ready to slip it in the waistband of Ian’s shorts. 

Mickey doesn’t hesitate. He stomps over and grabs the guy’s hand, shoving him away from the bar, away from Ian. 

“Those fingers go anywhere near that cock, I’m gonna break every knuckle in your hand, all 15 of them,” he spits at the guy, shoving him once again for good measure. 

“Settle down, rumble fish,” the guy snaps back at him, jerking his hand out of Mickey’s grasp and smoothing down his suit as if that makes up for the fact that he’s still an ugly piece of shit. He has the nerve to continue, saying, “Anyway, a hand only has 14 knuckles,” and wiggles his fingers in Mickey’s face, smirking like he’s clearly won the conversation. 

He hasn’t. 

“You wanna fucking die?” Mickey threatens, puffing out his chest and taking a step closer. He _will_ punch his fat fucking face in. The guy turns around and hightails it out of there, _wise choice,_ Mickey thinks. He huffs and then bends his head over, quickly counting up all the knuckles on his hand.

_Fuck._

Iggy had always told him a hand had 15 knuckles, but he guesses his brother had been wrong- there’s only 14. The thumb only has two. 

Dumb fuck. 

He hears his name being called and whirls around, but it’s only Ian, smirking and gesturing for him to come over. 

Mickey makes his way reluctantly over to the bar, leaning towards Ian so he can hear him over the music. 

“We got invited to an after-hours at the loft of one of the regulars here,” he says, practically shouting. 

And fucking so? If it’s anything like this club, Mickey does not want to go. He nods absentmindedly and glances away, refusing to make eye contact with Ian. But his boyfriend just sighs and comes out from behind the bar, standing closer to him. 

“It’s fun. What’s wrong with fun?” he tries, spreading his hands. 

“Nothing, unless it involves some fat faggot shoving his hands down your-” he starts, then Ian fucking moves in close like he’s about to kiss him. “The fuck?!” Mickey hisses out, jerking back. What the fuck is he doing? Hand holding in public is one thing, but kissing? No fucking way. 

It makes anxiety shoot through his stomach, makes his heart pump faster, makes his ears rush. 

He’s not good in crowds, not good when there’s a lot of people around him. He hates tight spaces and he hates people looking at him, judging him. 

But Ian isn’t judging him right now. He’s staring at him, his head slightly tilted, just a whisper of a smile on his face. Mickey glances around the club. 

Guys dancing, guys drinking, guys dancing with each other, guys making out, guys grinding. 

Everyone’s gay. 

And no one’s looking at them. 

Mickey stares at Ian and Ian stares back at him, and the lights flash and the song that's blaring over the speakers says _Make your move on me,_ and Mickey decides he will. 

They move at the same time, stepping into each other’s personal spaces, their hands reaching up in sync, cupping the backs of each other’s necks. Mickey slides their lips together, sparks exploding from behind his eyelids as usual. Kissing Ian just _does_ something to him. 

Ian takes charge, pressing forward, sliding his tongue into Mickey’s mouth, reaching up with his other hand so he’s grabbing onto his head with both hands, forcefully tilting his head to get the right angle that makes Mickey’s knees shake. 

Ian grabs his waist, tugging him impossibly closer, and the bass bumps through Mickey’s veins and maybe the music is not so bad anymore. Their tongues twine together, soft and lazy and desperate and hard all at the same time. 

Ian presses up against him, and Mickey can feel his hardness through his booty shorts, and it makes pride and arousal shoot through him, the fact that _he’s_ the one that can get Ian going like this, not anyone else. 

Eventually, they have to breathe, and Ian breaks away, but Mickey chases after him, because he doesn’t care if his head is pounding from the lack of oxygen and he’s starting to get a little light headed, he’d die happily if he could die kissing Ian. 

Ian just chuckles, rubbing his thumb against the dip of Mickey’s lower back, staring down at him with hooded eyes. 

“So is that a yes?” he asks. “You’ll come to the party?”

“Fine,” Mickey bites out. “But only to make sure you don’t take any more shit and go off the rails again.” 

Ian just smiles. “Of course.”

***

The loft is packed and busy, but it looks so fucking nice, with high ceilings and white columns and dark accents. Ian can’t help but glance back at Mickey as he pushes his way past a few people to make his way into the living room, half checking that he’s still following, and half checking to make sure this is real. 

_Work_ and _Mickey_ have always been two separate things, Mickey not wanting to see what he does outside of their family, but now there he is, standing in the house of one of Ian’s regulars. The flannel shirt he’s wearing looks nice on him, but he looks rather uncomfortable, staring around at the crowd of people, his eyebrows raised. 

“Check out these digs,” Ian says, trying to ground him. “Look at that view.” He gestures to one of the many huge windows, where he can see the entirety of the city sloping out below them. 

“What does this joker do?” Mickey asks, obviously unimpressed. 

“He’s an engineer and part-time photographer,” Ian answers. The man who invited them, Ryan, had been talking with Ian ever since he started working at the club, and they’ve come to know each other pretty well. He leaves good tips and tells good stories, and he isn’t bad company, Ian figures. “I think he took some of these pictures, actually,” he continues, gesturing around to some of the photos on the wall of naked male torsos. 

“Oh, yeah? Why’d he want you to come here then, huh?” Mickey asks, skeptical. 

“Oh, c’mon, not everybody wants something from me, Mick.”

Mickey just nods and glances around, not believing him. 

Just then, their host walks over, grinning and clasping his hands, and Ian greets him, pulling him in for a warm hug. 

“Ryan, oh good to be here,” he says honestly. “Hey, this is Mickey,” he says when they pull apart and gestures to his boyfriend. 

“Delighted to meet you,” Ryan says and holds out his hand for Mickey to shake, but Mickey just waves him off. Ian can’t help but smile at his boyfriend’s continued hatred for other people. It makes the times he spends with Ian and Aileen, allowing himself to relax and be free 10 times more special. He loves how fucking tough Mickey is, how he doens’t take anyone’s shit, he just does his own thing, not giving two fucks about what anyone else is doing around him. 

“Uh, could I get either of you a cocktail?” Ryan asks then, pulling Ian out of his head. 

“Yeah, you got beer?” Mickey asks. 

“I’ve got some Craft Brews, a Stout, IPA, Winter Wheat,” Ryan rattles off, and Mickey looks lost. 

“How about beer?”

Ryan looks a little taken back and glances over at Ian, then laughs. “Right. Could I be anymore of a fag? One beer, coming up.” He points at Mickey, then turns back to Ian. “Ian?”

“Let’s see what you got,” Ian decides, patting him on the arm. He heads off with Ryan over to the bar, shooting Mickey a smile, letting him know he’s fine and he should go mingle. Not that he would actually do that. 

“So… your boyfriend,” Ryan comments as he points out different types of brandy for Ian. 

“Yeah, crowds aren’t his thing,” Ian responds. “He doesn’t like meeting new people.”

Ryan scoffs. “That’s understandable. Is he still trying to convince himself he’s straight?”

“Nah,” Ian laughs. “That’s just how he is. I mean, he’s married to a woman, but that’s more convenience over anything.” Ryan’s eyebrows shoot up, but he continues. “And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t count giving birth as being straight.”

Ryan glances back at Mickey and lets out a low whistle. “He’s a carrier?”

“Yeah,” Ian responds, hating how Ryan said it like it was a big deal. 

“Wow. I mean, I knew you had a daughter, of course, but I didn’t know she was Mickey’s, as well.”

“Oh,” Ian says absentmindedly as he peruses the brandy. “Did I not bring it up.”

“Hmm, I don’t think so,” Ryan says, then he jerks his head over to where Ian left Mickey. “He’s looking not so out of his element anymore.”

Ian glances over to see that Mickey’s talking with another guy, with hipster glasses and perfectly gelled hair, and he has to smile. Mickey’s taking his advice and socializing. Finally. But then the guy laughs at something Mickey says, throwing his head back and taking another step towards him, and Ian’s smile drops. 

That’s a little too close. 

He grabs a Blue Moon for Mickey and the Hennessy Ryan had been pouring for himself and heads over. He tries his best to interrupt but not look too desperate, because he knows Mickey would tease him relentlessly, but the way the guy is looking at his boyfriend right now is making his insides twist. 

“Hey,” he says more loudly than he intended, handing the beer bottle off to Mickey. He suddenly remembers the guy’s name. “How’s it going, Brandon?”

“Good, good,” Brandon responds as if nothing’s wrong. “I was just talking to Mickey about his work. Very interesting- he’s very passionate about making sure women get equal pay.”

The way this guy is looking at his boyfriend is making Ian’s fingers twitch. _Passionate_ isn’t the word he would use for it. More like he doesn’t want them to be out of house and home. 

“Yeah,” he says, plastering on a smile and looping his arm around Mickey’s shoulder, taking a sip of his brandy. “Yeah, he is.”

Just then, someone calls to Brandon from across the room, and he pardons himself, and Ian lets out a breath. 

“You jealous, Gallagher?” Mickey asks, taking a swig of beer. Ian can hear his smile. 

“I’m not jealous,” Ian tries to argue. 

_Yeah, I am._

“Yeah, you are,” Mickey scoffs. “What, you pissed someone else is appreciating me for a change?”

Ian frowns at him, then lets his arm drop down from Mickey’s shoulders to his waist, pulling him in close. 

“No,” he says, trying to sound unbothered, cool. “I don’t care if other people talk to you. I care that he was getting too close.”

Ian drags him to a few other guys, regulars and other bartenders, who are all excited to meet him. Ian’s talked about him and Aileen a lot at work. How could he not? They’re his family. Mickey slowly loosens up throughout the night, muscles relaxing, and he even laughs at one guy’s joke, a combination of the beer and Ian’s hand around his waist. 

It gets Ian going, this more relaxed, carefree Mickey, not feeling judged because they’re surrounded by a bunch of guys who are just like them. Ian feels himself twitching in his boxers every now and then, and he wills himself to calm down because this is a classy party and he can’t fuck Mickey in the bathroom as much as he wants to. 

As the night drags on, they drink more alcohol, and Ian gets Mickey to try a nice wine instead of having more Blue Moons, and eventually Ryan lets them crash on his pull-out couch. They aren’t the only ones- guys are sleeping in his guest room and another couple passes out on a blow-up mattress. 

Mickey makes sure to send a very long and detailed text to Mandy right before they pass out about how to take care of Aileen in the morning. He had been worried about leaving her at first, but Ian had told him that they needed a nice break, and they would get home as soon as they could and spend the rest of the day with her. 

Mickey had finally agreed, climbing onto the mattress in front of the massive windows beside Ian, kicking off his shoes. Ian couldn’t resist throwing an arm around Mickey, grinning when he didn’t tense up even though they’re literally sleeping in the middle of a living room. 

Ian’s roused the next morning by a quiet chatter coming from his right ear and Mickey’s voice humming in his left, saying something about eggs. 

“And what do you think he’ll want?” he hears Ryan ask. Ian can sense the brightness that’s shining through his eyelids and keeps them shut, not wanting to blind his eyes any longer than he has to. 

“How the fuck should I know man, I’m not his keeper,” Mickey says next him, and then he feels the bed dip as Mickey sits up. 

“Right,” Ryan says, sounding taken back. Then, “So, how long have you been together.”

Mickey pauses before answering, and when he does, Ian can’t help but smile. “I don’t know… 2 years I guess.”

“Cool,” Ryan says. “You’re a lucky dude.”

Ian guesses he moves away, because he doesn't hear his voice again, so he groans as if he’s waking up for the first time and rolls over, seeking out Mickey’s warmth. 

Fingers comb through his hair, ever so gently, and Ian opens his eyes finally, squinting against the sunlight. 

“How’d you sleep?” he asks Mickey, whose mouth flicks up. 

“Fine,” he answers. “You?”

“Amazing,” Ian responds, then sits up, stretching out his back. “This pull-out couch is better than our mattress will ever be.”

“Yeah. Hey, some guy’s making eggs.”

“Cool,” Ian responds, swinging his legs off the side of the bed and grabbing his shoes and his leather jacket. “Eat, then leave? Head back home to see Aileen?”

“Yeah, fine by me,” Mickey says, repeating Ian’s actions. 

Ian glances back at his boyfriend over his shoulder. Mickey’s shoulders are relaxed as he bends over and ties up his shoes. He’s not staring around at everyone, glaring at them, waiting for them to make a comment. He grins, and stands up, sliding his jacket over his shoulders. 

When Ian throws his arm over the back of Mickey’s chair during breakfast, Mickey doesn’t say a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yaaaaay, club kiss! Also we love a good jealous Ian. And happy March! 
> 
> Look for the next chapter up by Thursday.


	7. The Legend of Bonnie and Carl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Moo!”  
> Ian nods. “That’s smart,” he says.   
> “Moo!”   
> “Did you break our daughter, Gallagher?” Mickey asks, raising an eyebrow at him. Aileen imitates a cow once more, giggling and staring up at Mickey. Mickey shakes his head. “Guess that’s her favorite word now. At least it’s better than fuck.”  
> 4.09

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: mentions of domestic abuse. :(

Early in the morning, Mickey wakes up to the sound of crying. Loud crying. 

Oh right. 

Svetlana’s baby. 

His half-brother. 

Fuck.

He lets out a groan and rolls over, smashing his face into the pillow. 

“Fuck, I forgot how terrible that is,” he sighs. Beside him, Ian hums in agreement and throws an arm over his back, pinning him to the bed. 

The morning after he and Ian had gotten back from Ryan’s, she had been in the kitchen, holding the baby. Ian had instantly fawned over him, cooing and holding his hand. Mickey didn’t give two shits. Everytime he looked at the baby, he just saw Terry, and it makes bile rise in his throat. 

It confuses him more now because if Svetlana is the mother of his half brother, wouldn’t that make her his… stepmom? But they’re married? He shakes his head at the thought and tries to suffocate himself with his pillow. Aileen wasn’t this bad. 

Speaking of, she starts whimpering from her crib, squirming around, the newborn’s cries having woken her. 

Mickey lets out a sigh. Great. He hears the baby’s cries grow in volume, and he throws Ian off of him, crossing the room and plucking Aileen out of her crib before she really starts getting upset. Her hands are clasped over her ears and she’s pouting. Mickey nuzzles into her cheek, holding her against him. 

“He’s loud as fuck, I know, right?” he coos gently. He bounces her until Svetlana _finally_ manages to calm her baby down. The walls are paper thin and their bedrooms are right next to each other, so Mickey can hear her speaking Russian to him, and it makes his lip curl. He fucking hates that language. 

Ian yawns as he rolls out of bed, swooping over to take Aileen from Mickey. He holds her high above his head, making airplane noises as she giggles. Her hair is all fuzzy from sleep, sticking up everywhere like she stuck her finger in an electrical socket. 

Mickey grabs a shirt and leaves them, starting up a shower. He steps in and is wetting his hair when all of a sudden, the shower curtain gets pulled back, revealing Ian, tugging off his shirt and stepping out of his boxers. 

Mickey raises an eyebrow at his boyfriend. “The fuck you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Ian responds, stepping into the shower with him and pulling the curtain closed. 

“Where’s Aileen?”

Ian waves him off. “She’s fine. She’s playing with her xylophone. Wanna get off. I’m so hard, Mick.” He whispers the last part, and Mickey can’t help but lick his lips as Ian steps closer, staring down at Mickey with heavy lids. 

Mickey reaches up and presses their lips together. The kiss is desperate, open-mouthed, sexy, the two of them panting into each other’s mouths. Ian slides a hand down between their bodies and grasps Mickey’s dick. 

Mickey returns the favor, savoring the weight of his cock in his hand, the slight bend of it. Ian moans, his hips twitching as Mickey strokes a finger over his dick slowly. 

“Stop teasing,” he pants, giving Mickey’s dick a squeeze.

Mickey has to chuckle at the way Ian sounds so desperate, but he listens, wrapping his hand around his boyfriend’s cock, his fingers just barely meeting each other all the way around. 

They jerk each other off simultaneously, and Ian tips his head back, his eyes closed, and Mickey watches how the water cascades over his face, collecting on his eyebrows and eyelashes in beads.

 _God, he’s beautiful_ Mickey realizes as Ian’s mouth falls open, forming an O. 

“So good, Mick,” Ian pants, twisting his hand on Mickey’s dick in a way that ignites fire in his belly. “Feels so nice.”

“Right back at you,” Mickey pants out. “ _God,_ right there,” he adds when Ian’s thumb dips into his slit. Ian does it again, and his hips pump forward of their own accord. Ian tilts his head forward then, eyes snapping open to hold Mickey’s gaze. 

Mickey bites his lip to keep himself from crying out too loud, because the way Ian’s looking at him right now is _doing_ things to him. His knees feel weak as he keeps pumping Ian’s dick, reaching down with his other hand to tug at his balls. 

Ian lets out a low moan that’s more of a growl, and says, “Christ, Mick, gonna come soon.”

“Me too,” Mickey replies, and all of a sudden, Ian’s kissing him again, their lips sliding wetly over one another, and Mickey can feel his orgasm building, so he tugs a little harder on Ian’s dick, and they spill over at the same time, Ian groaning into Mickey’s mouth. 

Mickey pulls back and rests his head on Ian’s collarbone, letting his eyes slide shut. Ian hums above him, and Mickey can feel the vibrations from his chest. 

“Fuck, that was good,” Mickey pants out. 

“Hmm,” Ian agrees, sliding his non-cum coated hand up between his shoulder blades, rubbing his back gently. 

They shower quickly together, Ian playfully holding the soap high above his head so Mickey has to reach for it, then gives up because he’s too fucking tall. Ian just smirks at him, the fucker. 

When they make it back to their room, Aileen’s somehow managed to climb off their bed and make it over to the dresser, where she's trying to figure out how to open the bottom drawer. 

Mickey scoops her up, and she pouts for a second, before being distracted with trying to grab Mickey's hair. 

“Hey,” he warns, tilting his head to try and escape her wandering fingers. “Lucky I’m not a chick with long-ass hair. That shit would get real painful.”

Aileen just giggles, bouncing his hold. Ian’s already changed her for the day and brushed her hair, but one of her socks is missing, and Mickey spies it on the corner of their bed, meaning she definitely took it off herself. 

“You gotta keep your socks on,” Mickey sighs, sitting her down on the floor and forcing the sock back on her foot. “Your feet are gonna get cold and you’re gonna get hypothermia and die.”

“She’s not gonna die, Mick,” Ian says, towel-drying his hair. 

“You don’t know that,” Mickey shoots back at him. “Babies are fucking delicate, man.” _And_ it’s February in Chicago. “Whaddya say about some breakfast, hmm?” he says to Aileen and she claps her hands together, recognizing the word. 

Mickey can’t keep the grin off his face as he stands up, holding his hand out for his daughter to take after she’s done pushing herself to her feet. She’s so fucking smart already. 

Colin’s in the dining room, grinning stupidly, and announced loudly, “I just got laid last night!” when he sees Mickey. 

Mickey raises an eyebrow at his brother and picks Aileen up by her armpits, setting her in her high chair. “Okay… congratulations?”

Colin shrugs, still smiling. “Got myself a girl,” he says. “Kelly. Real nice tits.”

“The fuck do I care?”

“I might move over to her house,” he says. “Too crowded here, with Svetlana’s new baby and all.”

Aileen smacks her palms on the tray of her high chair, declaring, “Dada!” 

“Yeah, breakfast is coming right up,” Mickey says to her, sighing. Ian moves into the kitchen. Mandy still isn’t up, so breakfast hasn’t been made. 

“Fine by me,” he says to Colin. “Less bills to pay.” It’ll also mean one less paycheck coming in, but Mickey supposes that business with the Rub N’ Tug will make up for it. It’s really starting to kick off. 

He accompanies Ian in the kitchen, who’s making toast, and starts heating up some water to make baby oatmeal. Svetlana shuffles out of her room then, looking tired, holding her son in her arms. Mickey refuses to look at him. Mandy and Kenyatta are still in their room, doing god knows what. 

“7 pounds, 6 ounces,” she says once they’re all sitting down, passing out the breakfast Ian whipped up. “Weight of your brother, if you care.”

“Fat little fuck, isn’t he,” Mickey bites out, ignoring the fact that Aileen had been 2 ounces when she was born. He internally scoffs at that. He makes bigger babies than Svetlana. He scoops up some oatmeal from Aileen’s bowl and holds it up to her lips, and she glares at the spoon distrustfully. 

“What, you only care about your daughter and don’t give two shits for your own brother?”

“Half-brother,” Mickey corrects. “And yes.” He holds the spoon up to Aileen’s lips, and she stares at it for a second before slowly opening her mouth, eating from the spoon. Mickey would like to fist-pump the air, but he won’t do it in front of Svetlana. 

“I do everything I can to make sure he doesn’t turn into piece of shit like you,” Svetlana sneers at him, and what does Mickey care? 

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re gonna turn him into a nice upstanding citizen since you’ve blown so many of them,” Mickey bites back. He’s getting real tired of Svetlana’s shit. Why can’t she just leave him alone?

“Mickey,” Ian says quietly, resting a hand on his knee, trying to calm him down. Micke grits his teeth but lets a breath out through his nose, scooping up some more oatmeal for Aileen and holding it up to her mouth. She grasps onto the spoon, eating it by herself this time. 

“We need money, stroller, changing pads,” Svetlana continues. 

“Go to work,” he snaps, turning to her. 

“I do, but it’s not enough for Raisa,” she shoots back. 

“Who the fuck’s Raisa?”

“One of the girls,” Svetlana replies, bouncing her baby gently. “She fell asleep while using Nair. She has third-degree burns on her pubis. She can’t work so she will watch baby.”

Ian takes the spoon from Mickey as he goes to get more oatmeal for Aileen, leaving him free to turn and face Svetlana. 

“Hold on, I’m supposed to pay some whore on the D.L. to babysit?”

“You could watch him,” Svetlana says. “You already watch daughter.”

Mickey shakes his head. No way is he watching his father’s spawn. “I got better shit to do.”

“Fine,” Svetlana snaps. “Money.”

Mickey opens his mouth to argue with her, but Ian interrupts him. 

“It’s your brother, Mick,” he says quietly. Mickey glances over at him. Aileen’s feeding herself now, digging the spoon messily in her bowl to scoop out oatmeal. Mickey swears, her mood changes every day. Just yesterday, she absolutely refused to even look at utensils, and now it’s like they’re best friends. “We could just give her a little bit of extra cash,” Ian continues, then glances at Svetlana. 

“$500. Tomorrow,” she demands. All of a sudden, the baby starts crying, and she gets up, huffing at Mickey and disappears into her room. 

Aileen coos and sticks her hand in oatmeal. 

Mickey lets out a long-suffering sigh and gets up from the table to get paper towels to wipe her hand off. 

“You could be nicer,” Ian says quietly when he returns to the table. Colin’s staring at his phone, not paying attention to them. “She just had a baby.”

“We got our own kid to worry about, I don’t wanna have to look after hers,” he hisses out to his boyfriend. 

But later that day, he heads over to the Alibi because Ian’s giving him his puppy dog eyes. Raisa comes over and watches the newborn while Svetlana goes to work, glaring at Mickey as she leaves. 

“I need to talk to you,” Mickey snaps at Kev as soon as he walks over the threshold. 

“Hey, there he is,” Kev says from behind the bar, grinning at him. “Congratulations, man. Drink on the house.”

“What for?” 

“The birth of your brother,” Kev responds, grabbing a glass and some liquor for him. “Yeah, my kid just popped out too. But my mother-in-law won’t let me raise him.”

“Lucky you,” Mickey says, taking the shot Kev hands him and tossing it back. That’s one less baby for Kev and V. 

“Hey, you’re wife’s upstairs,” Tommy says, who’s sitting at the bar like he always does. 

“I’m not looking for that fucking hose-bag,” Mickey snaps back, still on edge from their conversation earlier that morning. 

“Nice way to talk about the mother of your brother,” Kev says, bending over to heft a keg up. 

Mickey grimaces. “Don’t fucking say it like that.”

“Her tits are _enormous,_ ” Tommy says. “Definitely worth the price of admission.” Mickey stares at him. What the fuck is going on? Why is everyone suddenly on Svetlana’s side? 

“Tommy, he doesn’t want to hear about you going balls deep on his wife,” Kev says, straightening up and gesturing to Mickey. 

_Oh Jesus Christ._ “Shut the fuck up,” Mickey snaps, clenching his hands. “I need my cut from the business upstairs, _please_.” 

Kev raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, I got it right here.” He grabs an envelope from behind the register and hands it to Mickey, who snatches it from him. 

He’s walking away and checking the envelope, when he realizes there’s only $225 in there, then stops and turns back to Kev. 

“There’s only a couple hundred bucks in here.”

“Yeah, after expenses,” Kev says, pouring another beer for Tommy. 

“What expense are there other than sheets and abortions?” Mickey demands. He should have made nearly $600 for the week. 

“Uh, rent for one, utilities,” Kev replies. 

“You own the fucking place!”

“Yeah, and I gave us a very fair deal,” he retorts, handing the beer off to Tommy. 

“I need 500 bucks, Kev.”

“500?” Kev laughs. “Well, I don’t have it man.”

Mickey clenches his hands, crumpling up the useless envelope. “You are the worst fucking pimp I have ever seen,” he snaps, and walks out.

***

Ian gets why Mickey hates Svetlana’s baby. Really, he does. 

He knows that everytime Mickey looks at him, he just sees his father. What his father is capable of. 

But he’s still just a baby. 

He’s tiny and helpless, just like Aileen was. 

Ian introduces them to each other after both Mickey and Svetlana leave, Aileen to her uncle (half uncle)? But she isn’t interested. She probably doesn’t understand what _baby_ means yet, because she’s one herself. At first, she tries to grab onto his head like he’s a stuffed animal, then pouts when Ian drags her away. 

The girl who’s watching him, Raisa, stares at Ian, a bottle halfway to her lips. He shoots her a smile which she doesn’t return. 

When it’s clear that she can’t play with the newborn, Aileen loses interest and starts to wander away, so Ian scoops her up and takes her back to their room. 

“You were that teeny once,” he says to her. “I could fit all of you in my hand.” That’s not _that_ true, but holds up his hand anyway. Aileen tries to grab onto his fingers, and he chuckles. The baby really is tiny. He’s forgotten how small babies could get. 

Ian doesn’t even know what to call him. Svetlana hasn’t named him yet- as soon as she gave birth, she had to work, and just dropped him off with Raisa. 

Ian feels bad for her. He remembers Mickey’s complaining after having Aileen, how his body was fucked up for weeks after. He’d been drop-dead tired and snippy but oh so in love with their baby, and Ian remembers the fascination on his face whenever he would stare down at newborn Aileen. 

Ian pulls her onto his lap, smoothing down her curls. 

“Papa,” she sing-songs, waving a fist in the air. 

Seeing Svetlana’s kid is… doing things to him. He misses the absolute dependence of newborns, their tiny little hiccups and sneezes and puppy noises. Don’t get him wrong- he absolutely loves Aileen (how could he not?)- but there’s something special about newborns. 

He wants another baby, Ian realizes with a shock as Aileen wriggles in his lap, trying to crawl out of his arms.

He wants another one with Mickey. 

Maybe not right now, no, of course not right now, because Aileen’s only 14 months old and she still needs them so much, and money is pretty tight, and they don’t have enough room in the house, but maybe in the future. 

Ian smiles, letting Aileen go. She slides off their bed, her legs nearly buckling as she hits the floor, then toddles over to the stack of books Ian and Mickey have piled up in the corner of the room and starts to sift through them. 

Two kids. 

He knows Mickey would say yes, of course, to having another one in a couple year’s time. He’s seen the look he gets with Aileen, the hopeless smile, how soft his eyes get. 

Ian’s always wanted a big family. Fuck, he has 5 other siblings. But he’s always wanted one of his own, a shit ton of his own kids. 

He swallows hard, feeling a lump in his throat as he watches Aileen pluck a book from the stack and toddle back over to the bed. 

She stares up at Ian with big, blue eyes and coos, “Papa?” lifting up the arm that’s not wrapped around the book right now. 

Ian smiles at her and bends down, picking her up by her armpits and settling her in between his legs. Fuck, he’d like another kid. Maybe the next one would look much more like Mickey. 

The book Aileen chose is some sort of animal book, that has pictures of all the different animals saying various things. He flips through as she settles on his lap, giggling when he does funny voices for the animals. 

He’s imitating a cow, when all of a sudden Aileen blurts out “Moo!” and he freezes. 

“What did you say?” he asks her. 

“Moo!” 

Ian laughs, because she’s being so fucking cute right now. 

“Are you being a cow?” he coos. 

“Moo!” Aileen says, slapping her hands on his knees. “Moo!”

Just then, the door to the bedroom opens and Mickey slides in, looking stressed about something. 

“Hey,” he says. “Bad news. Only got $225 from the Alibi, so we’re gonna need to find another $275 somewhere before tomorrow and Svetlana throws a hissy fit.”

“Moo!” Aileen says, turning to and reaching out to him. 

Just like that, Ian can see all the stress leave Mickey’s body as he grins at their daughter, plucking her from Ian’s lap. 

“That the sound a cow makes?” Mickey asks her. 

“Moo!”

Ian laughs as Mickey gently boops her on the nose. 

“Why can’t you just use the money you’re saving under the envelope?” he asks Mickey, who shakes his head. 

“Gotta save that for bills and groceries and shit. It’s been slowly going down, now that we don’t have your nice army checks anymore. Besides, I wanna get a bank account, maybe set up some automatic payments so we don’t have to worry about monthly bills anymore.”

“Moo!”

Ian nods. “That’s smart,” he says. 

“Moo!” 

“Did you break our daughter, Gallagher?” Mickey asks, raising an eyebrow at him. Aileen imitates a cow once more, giggling and staring up at Mickey. Mickey shakes his head. “Guess that’s her favorite word now. At least it’s better than fuck.”

“Fuck!” 

“No, shit, go back to moo.”

Ian’s stomach rumbles and he glances down at his watch. It’s nearly 12:30, lunchtime, and he’s bored already. Mickey’s not going to the Rub N’ Tug until later in the afternoon, and Ian doesn’t have work until 8, so they have some free time. 

“Wanna go out to eat?” he asks. “Just the 3 of us?”

Mickey glances over at him. “Where?”

“Don’t know. Some diner. It’ll be fun, just some time to relax.”

Mickey needs to relax. He’s been so stressed lately, between Svetlana and Ian’s job (Ian feels bad for that) and their finances, he deserves some time off to just have fun and loosen up. 

Mickey reluctantly agrees, and they dress Aileen up for the cold weather. The diner is a small, homey one on the corner of some street, and all the staff is friendly. 

Aileen absolutely loves the attention she gets from the waitresses and other customers as they talk to her, soaking it all up and repeating her newly-learned word to anyone who would come within her radius. 

Ian can tell Mickey is relaxing with every passing second, even though they’re out in public, a small smile spreading across his face. Ian rests a hand on Mickey’s knee and gently rubs his thumb back and forth, and Mickey sighs under his touch. 

After lunch, they settle Aileen down for a nap, and Ian sucks Mickey off in the bathroom. It seems like everytime he gets a free moment with his boyfriend, his cock is ready to go, and he can’t help it. It’s not his fault Mickey’s hot. Not like Mickey’s complaining, anyway. 

Mickey heads over to the Rub N’ Tug that afternoon when Svetlana comes back, taking her son from Raisa, who leaves, and disappears into her room. Ian’s staring at her closed door when he gets an idea. 

He takes Aileen, bundles her up again, and heads over to the Gallagher house. 

Fiona’s glad to see him and Aileen, and they stay and chat for a while before Ian grabs some baby clothes that Liam used to wear from the attic. When he makes his way back home, it’s dark outside, and Mandy’s back from work, making herself a sandwich in the kitchen. Kenyatta’s there too, back from whatever the fuck it is he did that day- he usually works nights at his construction job. 

“Hey,” Mandy says happily as he takes off Aileen’s coat. “Where’d you go?” He’s prying off Aileen’s mittens when he glances up and sees Mandy beckoning him over with her hand behind Kenyatta’s back. Ian makes his way over, unease swirling in his belly. 

Mandy doesn’t look scared or anything, but the way her hands are shaking as she grabs herself a cheese slice from the fridge says otherwise. 

“Went to go get some clothes for Svetlana’s baby,” he says, holding up the Savers bag he had grabbed while at the Gallagher house. “Is he gonna be okay?”

Mandy scoffs. “How the hell should I know? Considering he’s being cared for by a 20-year-old Russian whore, could be worse.” She takes the cheese out of its plastic sleeve and slaps it on her bread. 

Ian sets the bag on the tiny kitchen table, letting go of Aileen, who toddles over to Mandy, blinking up at her. 

“Hey, Aileen,” Mandy says, bending down to stroke the top of her head and making her smile. 

“Well, it’s freezing out,” Ian says. “She only has a onesie for him.” He feels bad for the little guy. He grabs some clothes out of the bag and holds it up to Mandy. “It’s, uh, some of Liam’s old stuff. Could you give this to Svetlana for me? I don’t think she’d be too pleased if I handed it to her.”

He throws the clothes back in the bag and stands up, but Mandy moves over to him and takes the bag from him, throwing a quick glance over at Kenyatta. 

“How’s Lip?” she asks. 

“Don’t tell her where you got this, okay?” he says. He really doesn’t want to get on Svetlana’s bad side. 

“I won’t,” Mandy says quickly. “Hey, is Lip at home?”

“Back and forth, but most nights, yeah,” he answers, his voice low. So Mandy’s still pining after his asshole brother? She clearly wants to do it behind Kenyatta’s back, however, with the scared look that’s painted on her face and the way she keeps checking over Ian’s shoulder. 

Ian had hoped that Mandy would be done with Lip. Lip treated her like dog shit. She deserves so much better, but clearly that better isn’t with Kenyatta. 

Ian’s mixing a cosmopolitan for some rich guy is a fucking velvet suit, when Dan settles a hand on his shoulder. 

“Hey,” he says. 

“Hey,” Ian says back. He’s been… distant with Dan ever since the party. He’s not trying to be cold or mean, but he doesn’t want a repeat of what happened last time. Mickey doesn’t want it. 

“Some guy’s outside, told me to grab you,” Dan says. “Short, dark haired, smoking?”

“Oh, that’s Mickey,” Ian replies. He can’t help the smirk that comes over his lips. “Did he say what he was doing here?”

“Nah, only that he wants to talk to you outside and it’s important.”

Ian hands the drink off to the man, who shoots him a smile and slides him a 50. Ian pockets it, then turns back to Dan. “Think you can cover me here?”

Dan shrugs. “Sure thing,” he says, then, “Go get your man.”

Ian grabs his jacket quickly from the locker room before stepping outside. Sure enough, Mickey’s there, smoking a cigarette to keep himself warm, looking very uncomfortable. 

“What are you doing here? Is everything alright?” Ian calls out to him. 

Mickey whirls around, and his eyebrows hike up when he spots Ian. 

“Hey,” Mickey says. “Listen, we need to get money for Svetlana’s kid, or else she’s just gonna keep bothering the fuck out of me.”

Ian raises an eyebrow. “How much did you make out of the Rub N’ Tug tonight?”

“Not enough,” Mickey responds. “I offered to sell any shit Colin’s got for him, but he says he doesn’t have any. Smoke it all, stupid fucker.”

Just then, some guy in a snowy Lexus pulls up on the sidewalk and calls out to them. “Boys! Ride around the block?”

Ian opens his mouth to decline the offer, but Mickey beats him to it. 

“We look like a couple of fags for sale to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well this ain’t Macy’s, you ain’t window shopping,” Mickey snaps at him. 

The guy in the car lets out a long sigh. “You’re in Boystown, outside a bar called the Fairy Tail.”

Ian can see the exact moment Mickey decides he’s going to end him. He flicks his wrist at the guy and angrily bursts out, “Why don’t you fuck off before I give you a broken spine to go along with that limp wrist?” 

He snatches up an empty beer bottle lying on the sidewalk and the guy gets the message that they’re not interested and starts to drive off. 

“Yeah, get going!” Mickey shouts after him, chucking the bottle. Ian watches as it whistles through the air and smashes to bits in the middle of the street. 

He turns back to Ian, gesturing to the disappearing car. “Thinks he can buy whatever he wants ‘cause he’s got a fucking Rolex and an S-class. That shit happen to you a lot?”

Ian shrugs and pulls his coat tighter around himself. Fuck the stupid uniform booty shorts. “Every night.”

“From rich dudes?” Mickey asks, curling his lip. 

“It’s fucking cold out, I’m gonna go back inside,” Ian says. He doesn't want to leave Mickey, but he’s about to freeze his balls off. 

“Hey, hey, hold on,” Mickey calls after him. “Tell your boss you’re going home sick tonight.”

Ian frowns. “Sick?”

“Yeah, whatever. Tell him you got AIDS.”

Ian fakes throwing up, and thankfully Adam lets him go, not wanting him to puke all over the bar. He changes and meets Mickey outside again, feeling much warmer this time. 

“Where we going?” Ian asks him as Mickey immediately starts marching down the sidewalk, following directions on his phone. 

“The Ritz,” Mickey responds. 

“The _Ritz_?” Ian echoes. “What the fuck for?” What is Mickey going to have them do, rob a fucking hotel?

“Nah, nah,” Mickey waves him off, then tells him his plan. 

It’s a stupid plan, Ian realizes, and it’s basically him doing exactly what Mickey doesn’t want him to, but it’ll get them a shit ton of money, probably even more than Svetlana needs, so he goes along with. He’s done worse things. 

Some conference is going on, a bunch of old, rich white guys in suits milling around. Ian slips Mickey the money to get a room he got from his night, and then makes his way to the bar. 

The hotel is over-the-top fancy, with golden chandeliers and columns rising up towards the ceiling. Ian takes his seat at the end of the bar and orders a dirty martini, which is ridiculously expensive, but he knows they'll make up the money for it. It takes less than 5 minutes before he’s caught the eye of some dude at the bar, his hair whiter than Frank’s. 

After they’ve been staring at each other for a while, long enough that the guy takes the time to drag his eyes up and down Ian’s torso, Ian turns to the side and drinks the rest of his martini, letting the guy get a good view of his throat. He’ll need the alcohol in his system. 

He stands up then and walks slowly over to the man, pausing behind him and leaning against the back of his chair. 

“Got a room upstairs,” Ian says, forcing his voice to be higher, softer. Old guys are into all that twink shit. 

“You don’t beat around the bush,” the guy says lowly. 

“I know what I want,” Ian responds. “Do you?”

As he walks off, his phone buzzes, and he glances down at it briefly. 

_355\. I’ll be in the closet._ Mickey says, and Ian has to rein back a scoff at the irony. 

He makes his way to the elevators, and is half convinced that the guy isn’t going to follow him, when he suddenly appears over his left shoulder. 

The elevator is empty when they step in it, and Ian can hear the guy’s heavy breathing besides him. Fuck, he should’ve had another drink.

***

Mickey’s waiting in the closet, his phone at the ready. It’s deathly silent in the hotel room, the only sound being his breath and his heartbeat. He’s already slipped the fancy-ass bath soaps and towels in Ian’s work bag, and is just waiting for Ian and the fancy motherfucker he’s supposed to seduce at the bar. 

The door bangs open, making him jump, but he hears Ian’s voice say, “Here we are,” then the sound of people shuffling into the room. 

“You have condoms and lube?” the guy asks, and Mickey can hear the telltale sounds of him taking off his clothes. 

“Of course,” Ian responds, his voice unnaturally high. 

“You like it rough?” 

“Whatever you’re into.” 

Mickey wants to vomit. 

But he waits. 

Waits until he hears a grunt coming from the old guy and the sound of skin-on-skin, then bursts out of the closet, phone at the ready. 

“Say cheese motherfucker!” He snaps a photo of the guy over his boyfriend, getting Ian’s clearly flat chest in the frame so no one can doubt he’s a man. Then he punches the bastard in the face for good measure. 

The guy takes a punch like a pussy, collapsing on his side while Ian slides off the bed and groaning. Mickey grabs the watch that he must’ve taken off before he decided to try and go balls deep in Ian, and holds it up to the light, watching as it glints. 

“Hey, that’s Bulgari,” he says. “That’s like, 200 bucks, cash. Nice watch man.”

Ian tugs on his jeans, smirking down at the man, who finally comes to his senses. 

“What’s going on? I’m calling the fucking police.” He moves to get up and grab the phone as Mickey picks up his cell phone and turns it on, raising his eyebrows at the picture of the guy’s wife and daughter. 

“Yeah, you do that. Whatcha think Claire and little Elanore would make of the photo I just took?” 

The guy pauses. “Who?”

“Whatever the fuck their names are,” Mickey says, holding up his phone to him. 

“You gonna out him?” Ian asks, tugging on his jeans. 

“Only if I have to,” Mickey responds, now going through the guy’s wallet. He only has $90 in it, not nearly enough. “Hey, it’s his fault for living a lie, right?” He slides the cash out, then tosses the man his empty wallet. “Why don’t we take a little trip downstairs. Gonna go to the ATM machine.”

“If you're gonna take my money, the least you can do is have the twink suck me off,” the guy says, glaring down at Mickey. 

Mickey shoves the cash in his back pocket and gestures to Ian, who’s got his arms crossed and is shaking his head, a smirk on his face. “That all you think he is? Some twink?” God knows Ian gives it to Mickey too good to be a fucking twink. 

“He gave me blue balls,” the man says, as if that explains everything. 

“Did he?” Mickey says, then grabs the guy’s shoulders and knees him in the croth, because _fuck him,_ that’s his boyfriend he’s talking about. 

The guy groans and collapses in on himself, coughing. Mickey lets him lean up against the side of the bed. 

“Now they’re black and blue balls.”

They pack up their shit, making the guy get dressed again, then lead him down to the ATM machine. He mentions calling the police again, so Mickey threatens him with his Ruger, and he shuts up about it. 

Ian throws him a frown, but Mickey shows him how he didn’t even put the bullets in just in case, and Ian relaxes. 

They make the guy withdraw a thousand bucks for them, then they split. Mickey knows that’s way less than that rich fucker makes in a month, so it won’t even matter to him. They sprint all the way to the L, high off life, and Ian kisses Mickey hard when they take their seats, not giving two fucks about the people around them. 

A kiss like that in public would make anxiety course through Mickey’s veins, but now all he can do is grin. 

The next morning when Mickey wakes up, Ian’s missing from his side, but the bed is still warm, and Mickey can hear noises coming from the kitchen. Aileen isn’t in her crib either, and when he rolls over to check the clock, it’s only 7:15. 

He lets out a sigh. Fucking Ian with his fascination for waking up early. 

He’s making pancakes for everyone in the kitchen, Aileen holding onto the kitchen cabinets next to him, trying to strain her neck up to look at what her father’s doing, while Svetlana sits at the dining room table, holding her newborn on her lap. Mickey refuses to look at him as he throws down 500 bucks on the table in front of Svetlana. 

He goes to move away, but she speaks up. 

“Yevgeny.”

Mickey turns around to stare at her. “Huh?”

“Name of your brother.”

“The fuck kinda name is that?” he demands. It sounds so fucking stupid. 

“My father’s,” Svetlana replies, glancing down at the baby, who’s starting to fuss. 

“The one who sold you to a pimp for 200 bucks? You're gonna name your kid after him?”

“It was 300, and he had good qualities, too,” Svetlana throws back at him. 

“Yeah, clearly,” he scoffs, then gestures to the pile of cash he left her. “We’re square.”

He can feel her eyes glaring at him as he moves into the kitchen, scooping Aileen up and making her giggle. Ian’s already dressed up, in sweats and a hoodie. 

“Where the fuck are you going?” Mickey asks him, raising an eyebrow. 

“For a run after I make breakfast,” Ian responds simply. 

Mickey watches as he flips a pancake. “What’s the occasion?”

Ian shrugs and glances at him, grinning. “Just felt like it. So, I’ve been thinking. Now that I work nights, I have a bunch of free time. What if I took up something else during the day?”

“Moo!” Aileen says, clapping her hands together. 

“Uh huh, exactly,” Mickey says to her, then turns to Ian. “Like what? You can’t get another job, man, someone’s gotta watch Aileen.”

Ian shakes his head and laughs. “Nah, I was thinking something I could do at home. Like programming games, or something.”

Mickey raises an eyebrow at him. “Programming?” he echoes. “With what computer?”

Ian flips another pancake. “We could get a nice one with the money we made tonight. And if I figured out how to code and shit, we could make a lot of good money!” 

Mickey just shrugs. “Sure, whatever,” he says. 

“Dada!” Aileen coos, wriggling in his grasp. He walks over to the dining room, letting Ian finish cooking breakfast, and sets her down in her high chair. He grabs the milk carton out of the fridge and fills her sippy cup up with it, placing it down in front of her. She immediately snatches it up and starts drinking, kicking her feet happily. 

The banana pancakes Ian makes are really fucking good, and they all sit in a strange silence as they eat. After, Mickey’s taking the dishes to the sink and Ian’s looking around for his hat to go on a run when someone knocks on the door. 

Svetlana gets up and answers it from where she was sitting with Yevgeny (what a dumb fucking name) on the couch. 

It’s Lip. He’s looking for Fiona. 

Well, neither of them have seen her, and Ian takes the time to talk to Lip about his gaming idea. Mickey knows it’s fucking pointless- Ian would have to take the time to learn how to program before they could make any actual money, but he lets Ian ramble on anyway. 

“Hey, you sure you don’t wanna go?” Ian asks Lip when he finds his hat and gestures outside. “It’s 8 miles.”

“Uh, nah, I’m good,” Lip replies. 

Ian shrugs and sees himself out, before shouting a goodbye to Mickey and Aileen. 

Mickey rinses off the last dish, then starts to take Aileen out of her high chair. He’ll spend some time with her while Ian’s on his run, then put her down for a nap. 

“Hey,” Lip says quietly as he makes his way over to Mickey. That’s the nicest he’s ever talked to him, and Mickey can tell something’s up immediately. 

“What do you want, _Phillip_?” 

“Is- is Ian okay?”

Mickey pauses from wrestling Aileen’s tray off her high chair and glances up at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, is he on anything? I know he’s not the type to take drugs, but anything could’ve happened in the army.”

“No,” Mickey snaps at him. He doesn't want to be reminded of that shit. “Trust me, I would know.”

“Okay…” Lip sighs. “Well, doesn’t he seem a little… wound up to you? And I mean, he isn’t worried in the slightest about the MPs.”

Mickey thinks about snapping at Lip, telling him to fuck off, but something inside of him stops himself. 

Ian _has_ been acting different. He had been ignoring it in favor of rejoicing Ian being back from the army, but now that it’s been nearly a month, the feeling has worn off and they’re back to their day-to-day lives.

It seems like Ian barely sleeps. His shift at the club is up at 2, and he falls asleep at nearly 3 in the morning, but he’s always up at 8 when Mickey gets up. Not to mention the runs he goes on. Mickey had asked him about them, and Ian had said that he’s trying to be slim for the club, but 8 miles _does_ seem a little excessive. 

And then there was the drug thing. Randomly, out of the blue. 

Mickey’s insides twist.

He _knows_ Ian isn’t taking drugs to make him pumped up all the time. He would know. He’s always been able to tell when his brothers have been on some serious shit before, no matter how hard they try to hide it. 

So something else is going on with Ian. 

And if it’s not drugs, Mickey has no fucking idea what it could be. 

But he doesn't want to say any of that to Lip, so he just shrugs. “I dunno. I guess. He’s just happy to be back from the army, that’s all.”

He tries to teach Aileen more animal sounds, but she’s still stuck on “Moo,” repeating it even when Mickey tries to get her to imitate a chicken. 

Ian comes back from his run a little later, rosy-cheeked and breathing heavily. He showers, and they put Aileen down for her nap, then Mickey leaves for the Rub N’ Tug. 

He’s shrugged his coat on and is shutting the door to the house when he hears someone calling to him from across the street. 

It’s Kenyatta. Mickey guesses he didn’t sleep in the house last night. Come to think of it, Mandy hadn’t either. 

“What do you want?” Mickey sighs out. 

“Mandy. She here last night?” Kenyatta demands. 

“She wasn’t with you?”

“Nah, I was at work. Kept calling the house, no answer. Then I call her cell, she say she at home.”

Mickey raises an eyebrow at him. Sounds like Kenyatta has some serious clingy issues. 

“She with Lip?” Kenyatta asks. 

Mickey smirks. “You just putting 2 and 2 together, huh? Hey, good for you, Einstein.”

“He in his motherfucking house?” 

“Nah, asshole’s at college,” Mickey tells him. Lip had declared he had to get to class after he had talked to Mickey, then promptly left, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. At Kenyatta’s blank stare, Mickey continues. “It’s a big place, lots of buildings, people go there to learn, don’t worry about it.”

He needs to get to work, so he turns around, but Kenyatta isn’t finished yet. 

“Man, where at?”

“West Maxwell,” he calls over his shoulder. He knows Kenyatta’s going to try and kill Lip because he’s fucking Mandy and they aren’t exactly subtle about it, and he wants to help him as much as he can. Fucker deserves it. 

“Ey,” he shouts back at Kenyatta. “You planning on giving a beat down to every guy Mandy’s been with? Your arms are gonna get fucking tired.”

It’s not until after work when he realizes what he’s done.

Ian texted him to tell him that he took Aileen on a walk, so he makes his way to the bathroom first thing to piss. V’s stupid rule about needing to pay to use the bathrooms at the Alibi is fucking with him. 

Kenyatta had brushed past him, ignoring his question about if he managed to find Lip at college or not, shoving into his shoulder hard. Raisa is drinking her weight in vodka on the couch, and asks Mickey if he’ll watch Yevgeny, but he doesn’t give two shits. 

His bladder is about to fucking explode. 

So he makes his way quickly over to the bathroom door, pushing it open without a thought.

He freezes. 

Mandy’s standing at the sink, her eye swollen up, blood dripping down from her mouth, staining the sink. She’s holding a rag to her face, but it’s doing nothing. 

She jumps when he opens the door, and they stare at each other for a second, Mickey reeling in shock, but Mandy seems to get over herself and grunts out, “The fuck you looking at,” and slams the door in his face. 

Mickey’s hands find his hair. 

He can’t help but think how much Mandy looks like their mom in that moment. 

Bleeding, broken, bruised, silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowza. A lot of shit went down. Ian wants another kid, Mickey's starting to worry about him, and now Kenyatta's beating on Mandy?  
> Look for chapter 8 sometime on Sunday- I wanna get it up before it get distracted with 11x07 lol.  
> As always, comments and kudos are my crack!


	8. Liver, I Hardly Know Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just not right now. Aileen’s too dependent on them- she’s basically just a baby herself, and having another kid now, when they already have a newborn in the house, wouldn’t be the brightest idea.   
> But still, he thinks it would be a good idea for them to look into in the future. He doesn't want a huge family- his own family has scared him off of that- but maybe one more kid wouldn't be too bad.   
> 4.10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun times coming up.😬

Ian’s great. Actually, he’s more than great. He’s fucking fantastic. 

Sure, Fiona’s on house arrest and Frank’s dying, but everything else is great. 

Kenyatta’s been missing for nearly a week. After he had beat up Mandy, he had just disappeared. Ian had patched her up while Mickey had gone on a murderous rage around the surrounding neighborhoods, trying to find him, but had eventually come back empty handed. 

“It’s fine,” Mandy had tried. “It was my fault. He was pissed that I’m hanging out with Lip. I shouldn’t be- we were done a while ago.” 

Yevgeny’s doing good, as well. Svetlana took him for a checkup at a free clinic a few days ago, and had reported that everything was fine with him. He had gotten his newborn shots and he’s beginning to actually look like a baby and less like a squashed vegetable. 

Ian had had Aileen hold him a couple of days ago, half-supporting him while she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Svetlana had been watching over his shoulder like a hawk, ready to swoop in at any moment.

“This is your uncle,” Ian had said to Aileen, finding it slightly weird that his daughter is older than her uncle. “His name’s Yevgeny.” 

Aileen doesn’t seem to grasp _what_ exactly he is, until he starts crying, his tiny fists balling up and his little mouth falling open. She had gotten the most shocked look on her face, and had just stared at Ian with wide eyes after Svetlana had taken him away as if to say, “Holy shit. He makes the same noise I do.”

There’s still snow on the ground, but February is nearly over, and that leads into March, which leads into April, which leads into May, which leads into summer, and Ian’s just counting down the days until he and Mickey can let Aileen run free in the backyard. 

He’s been trying to teach her how to kick a ball, because apparently at 15 months, that’s a skill toddlers are supposed to be learning, but she doesn't quite get it yet. 

Ian holds her foot gently and brings it out to connect it to a small, soft soccer ball he found in the basement, and she giggles, but can’t quite do it by herself. He tries to demonstrate it for her, and she chases after the ball fine, but can’t quite seem to copy him. 

It makes Ian think about the future, when she’s in preschool. Will she want to do a sport? He supposes they’ll put her in one regardless, because it’s supposed to be good for development and all the toddler websites recommend it. And when they do, what sport? 

Ian and Mickey both did Little League and Fiona and Lip did soccer (with Fiona going into track in middle school). Debbie had flitted around a bunch of sports, first soccer, then softball, then gymnastics, then she quit, and Carl’s been doing football for a while now. 

Ian likes to think that whenever Aileen chases after that ball, giggling and going as fast as she can, he sees the beginning of a star soccer player. And he tells her that, picking her up and flying her through the air. 

“And that’s striker Gallagher, with yet _another_ goal! And America wins the Olympics!”

Mickey came home from the Rub N’ Tug one time when he was doing that, and had watched the two of them with a fond look on his face. Ian’s heart couldn’t help but swell in his chest. 

Later that night, he fingers him open until he’s so sloppy and has already come once, then rocks his cock against his ass until it slips in of its own accord. Ian lets his hips snap forward, burying his dick into Mickey as far as he can, and Mickey lets out a long, low groan that makes arousal coil all throughout Ian’s body. 

Mickey, who’s laying on his back, hooks his legs around Ian’s thighs, dragging his body forward with each thrust Ian makes. He wraps a hand around his own dick and Ian can’t help but bury his face in Mickey’s neck, inhaling his natural scent, letting it fill his head, taking over his senses. 

They come together, Mickey’s hands running through Ian’s hair and Ian mouthing at his jaw. 

Ian pulls out when he’s finished, sliding the condom off and tossing it in the trash. Mickey’s limbs collapse on either side of him and he’s panting loudly, his chest rising and falling rapidly. 

“Looks like I really wore you out, huh?” Ian can’t help but say, snuggling up next to him. 

“Fuck off,” Mickey groans.

Ian huffs out a laugh and rests a hand on his stomach, tapping his fingers absentmindedly. 

“You ever think about having another kid?” he asks after a while. 

_Silence._

“I mean, not now,” he says quickly. “Like, when Aileen’s older. A little more independent. I just- I miss it, you know? Obviously not the crying, but babies are really fucking cute, and I know you don’t like Yevgeny, but I think another one of our own would be-”

“Ian,” Mickey cuts him off, and Ian immediately shuts up. He can tell Mickey is looking at him, but he doesn't want to stare back. “I think about that, too,” he says quietly. 

“Really?”

“Yeah. I love Aileen, of course I fucking do, but I think she would want a little brother or sister, don’t you?”

Ian looks at him then, and sees his face is unguarded, his smile soft. 

“Course,” Ian responds. 

“But in a few years,” Mickey says. 

“In a few years,” agrees Ian. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t start practicing right now.”

Just _looking_ at his boyfriend is making him hard again, so he rolls on top of Mickey, caging him in with his arms, and starts to reach down in between their bodies to grab Micky’s spent dick, but he’s stopped by a hand on his wrist. 

“Ian, I can’t fucking go again,” Mickey says. 

“Well, I can.”

“Yeah, how the fuck? You just came, like, 3 minutes ago.”

Ian tilts his head to the side. He’s been more horny as of late, and he usually feels ready to go again after coming. He takes it as just the regular teenage horniness (he _is_ still 17) and the fact that Mickey is just so fucking hot. 

Ian grins down at his boyfriend. “What can I say? You get me going?”

“Well there’s no way in hell you’re sticking it in me again. I’m so fucking sore.”

“Oh. Can I just jerk off then?”

“Fine,” Mickey huffs out. “Don’t get cum in my hair.”

Ian pouts, pretends to be disappointed. “Where’s the fun in that then?”

Mickey rolls his eyes affectionately. “Fucking dick.”

“Exactly.”

He leaves for work after they put Aileen down for the night and gets a massive tip from a guy with a goatee. When he slides into bed behind Mickey, he only sleeps for about 3 hours, then can’t sleep any longer. He has a fuck ton of energy. He just feels _good._

He slips on his sneakers and goes out for a run. The sunrise is so fucking _beautiful,_ it makes him want to run to the top of Mount Everst. 

Ian sneaks back into the house, showers, then has pancakes ready by the time Mickey and Aileen are awake. Colin’s no longer living with them- he’s moved in with his girlfriend, so it’s just the two of them, Mandy, and Svetlana at breakfast now, plus the two kids. Iggy gets out of jail in a couple of weeks, so they’ll need to figure out where he’s going to sleep. Probably on a mattress in the living room. 

Ian’s got a bite of pancakes halfway to his mouth when someone knocks at the door. 

“Moo!” Aileen calls out. It’s become her new favorite word, and she’ll say it whenever she fucking feels like it. Like when the silence is too heavy or when Mickey asks her which shirt she wants to wear that day. 

Debbie’s at the door, looking distressed. 

“Fiona never came home,” she blurts out the second Ian opens the door. “She violated probation.”

“She’s not in the house?” Ian asks, stepping back to let Debbie come into the warmth of their house.

Debbie pulls off her hat. “I checked last night, again this morning.”

“Back to the metal motel,” Mickey adds in from the table, trying to pour syrup and stop Aileen from sticking her hands in the stream coming from the bottle. 

“I called Sheila, she’s not there, and she’s not at the hospital with Kev and V,” Debbie continues. 

“The hospital?” Ian echoes. 

“V’s having her babies.”

Ian has to smile at that. “She is? Wow.” Ian can’t wait to see their kids. He knows they’re going to be cute. 

“Fiona would not miss her curfew on purpose!” Debbie says. “What if she got mugged, or-or fell in front of the L?”

“She's probably fine, Debs, maybe she got permission to go out,” Ian says, trying to calm his sister down by placing a hand on her shoulder. 

“You don’t think we should call the police?”

“No, that’ll just make shit worse,” Mickey pipes up from the table. 

“Well, what _do_ we do?” Debbie asks, brushing past Ian to grab a pancake off the table. “Will someone at least call the hospital while I’m at school?”

“I’m on it,” Ian says as Debbie sets her backpack down on the couch and starts opening it up and rifling through it, making herself at home. 

“I lost the shiv Carl made for me,” she sighs. Ian frowns at her. Since when does Debbie have a fucking shiv? 

“Why do you need a shiv?” he asks. 

“In case I run into my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend,” she explains. Ian and Mickey exchange a glance. 

Just then, Mandy makes her way in from the kitchen, where she was making a cup of coffee. The cuts from a few days ago have healed into visible bruises, just barely starting to go yellow. Apparently, Debbie can see Mandy’s face from the living room, because she says, “Woah- what happened to you?”

“Kenyatta happened,” Mickey grunts out. 

“I’m over it, okay? Let’s move on,” Mandy says meekly as she sets her steaming mug down. 

“Mickey, do you have a shiv?” Debbie asks loudly as Ian places a hand on Mandy’s arm. 

“Look, you don’t have to be over it, alright?” he says gently. “You don’t have to get back with him.”

Mickey shrugs and moves into the kitchen, rifling through the silverware drawer until he finds what he’s looking for and hands it to Debbie. It’s a shiv made out of a toothbrush and duct tape, and she smiles at him. 

“Thanks Mickey,” she says, then turns to Ian. “Are you calling the hospitals?!”

“Yeah,” Ian sighs out, grabbing his phone from his back pocket. “Sorry, doing it now.”

“Is that a shiv?” Mandy asks, frowning as Debbie grabs her bag again. 

“Yup, later!” she says, and sees herself out.

Ian punches in the number of the nearest hospital that he has memorized by now and says while it’s ringing, “13 years old, and she’s bringing a shiv to class.”

“Man, I miss high school,” Mickey sighs. 

“Moo!” Aileen declares. 

The hospitals report no one matching Fiona’s description, so he straps Aileen in her stroller once Mickey leaves for the Rub N’ Tug and takes her for a walk around the city to find Fiona. He’s on Roosevelt when he spies some street musicians, using old buckets as drums and plucking tightly stretched strings. 

Their music is impressive, and Ian wonders if maybe Aileen will be a musician someday. Probably not a singer, he thinks, if she’s anything like him, but maybe she’ll have a real talent for notes and rhythms. 

She’s passed out right now, her cheek squished up against the side of the stroller, looking cosy as he’s tucked a warm blanket around her. He can’t help but smile down at his daughter. He knows there’s nothing he won’t do for her. He wants her to be everything that she wants to be and more. He knows he’s going to do everything in his power to make sure that she has a much better life than he or Mickey ever could. 

After nearly an hour of wandering aimlessly about the neighborhood, he decides that he isn’t going to be finding Fiona anytime soon, and heads over to the Gallagher house. 

“No sign of her,” he announces as he makes his way into the living room, stripping off his jacket. Debbie’s home from school, feeding Liam in the kitchen, and Lip is back from college, bent over a book and some papers on the couch. He unclips Aileen from her stroller but leaves her in there. He doesn’t want to wake her up from her nap. 

“Hey, how come none of us ever learned to play guitar?” he asks, remembering the musicians he saw. “Or any instrument? I was thinking that maybe we could pick up guitar, or piano, or drums, even! Just, it’s such a cool way to express yourself. ‘Cause there were these street musicians on Roosevelt, and they had this groove thing going, and I was thinking that-”

“That sounds really interesting, but I’m trying to read German philosophy,” Lip interrupts. Ian stares at his brother. “Okay? Which is hard enough on a good day, meaning a day when I’m not imaging Fiona _dead_ in a _ditch_ somewhere, so if you could just please-” 

Lip cuts himself off, and Ian checks on Aileen to give him somewhere else to look besides him. Well now he feels guilty for rambling on when Lip is clearly over his head. 

“Sorry,” Lip says after a while. “I’m sorry, Debs.” Debbie had moved from the kitchen over to Ian, a worried look on her face. Lip sighs and flips the book he was reading shut, then checks the time on his phone. “I’ve gotta go,” he says. 

Ian turns to Debbie. “Just ‘cause Fiona’s gone doesn’t mean she’s hurt,” he tries to reassure her. “I mean, sometimes people just need to get away for a little while.”

“What if she’s pulling a Frank?” Lip asks, pausing from shoving his stuff in his bag. 

“What do you mean?” Debbie asks

“Like she went somewhere, got fucked up.”

“Not like Fiona.”

“What has she done this month that _is_ like Fiona?” Lip points out. “These past few days she’s been pretty down.”

“You’ve been kinda hard on her,” Ian says. He’s not around the Gallagher house much, but when he is, things are tense between Lip and Fiona and their conversations usually end in yelling matches. 

Lip stands up, starting to get pissed. “What, so it’s our fault?”

“I didn’t say that,” Ian says. 

“We’ve been pretty much ignoring her,” adds in Debbie. 

“Stop,” Lip says firmly. “Don’t go down that road, okay? If she’s bottoming out, that’s on her.”

Ian shrugs. “So, we act like we’re looking for Frank- check under bridges.”

“Yeah, why not?”

“The drunk tank at the city jail,” Debbie throws in. 

“Who else would she get fucked up with?” Lip asks, crossing his arms. 

“What about Mike’s brother- Robbie? The one who gave her the coke?”

“Yeah, you got his number?”

“Ian could call WorldWide Cup, say he’s an old friend,” Debbie says, gesturing to him. 

Well fuck, that’s the second time he’s making calls around for Debbie. 

Lip has an exam, so he leaves then alone. Ian manages to get Robbie’s apartment number, and Debbie fills him in as they walk over there, taking Aileen and Liam along with them, Aileen still passed out. 

Apparently, Fiona had been fucking her boss, Mike, and then had met his rough and tumble alcoholic brother, Robbie, who she hooked up with after Mike got trashed at a bar and passed out. Robbie had told Mike that they had fucked during one of the brothers’ many fights, then had stopped by after things with Fiona’s job had gotten tight to deliver the coke Liam had gotten in to. 

Robbie’s apartment is just how Ian would imagine it based on Debbie’s story. The paint of the door is chipping and when he finally answers Debbie’s persistent knocking and bell ringing, it looks like a warehouse inside, with bare concrete walls. The place is completely trashed, with empty beer bottles littering the floor and cigarette stubs and a pair of panties. 

Robbie is just how Ian imagined, too. Clearly AA isn’t working out too well for him. 

“I knew you were home,” Debbie snaps as soon as he opens the door. 

“What?” Robbie grunts out, stumbling a little. 

“Been ringing the bell for 20 minutes,” Ian says, a little annoyed at him. 

“Okay, I was asleep,” Robbie says as if it was obvious. 

“Is Fiona here?” Debbie demands. 

“What? No-” he begins, but Debbie cuts him off. 

“Those are her shoes!” she gasps, and Ian can see her gray converse lying on the chipped coffee table. “Would you please get Fiona? Tell her Debbie and Ian are here.”

Robbie waves his hands, tells them to hold on and shuffles further into his apartment. Ian strains his neck, trying to see anything, but he returns before Ian can get a good look. 

“She was here,” he slurs. “I-I guess she left.” He’s got her coat in his hand, and bends over to grab her shoes. “I guess everybody left.” He shuffles over and holds Fiona’s clothes out to Ian and Debbie, and Ian can’t fucking believe this guy. 

“She left without her shoes, her coat, and her phone? Really?” he snaps, grabbing Fiona’s stuff from Robbie. 

“I guess so, yeah,” Robbie mumbles. 

“Well, when did she leave?” Debbie presses. “Did she go with anybody? Did she say where she was going?”

Robbie’s no help. He’s too fucking hungover, so Debbie screams Fiona’s name, but gets not response. 

Ian tries to calm her down, placing a hand on her arm, but Debbie isn’t done. “From now on, stay away from her,” she snaps. “Understand?”

Robbie nods, wincing, and they step away from the door. Debbie scoops up Liam, and Ian pushes Aileen’s (she’s somehow still asleep) stroller over to the elevators. 

“Damn,” Ian says. It sometimes blows his mind that Debbie’s a fucking _teenager_ now, full of angsty and boy drama.

“No one fucks with the Gallaghers,” Debbie snaps.

***

Try as he might, Mickey can’t get his and Ian’s conversation from the previous night out of his head. Honestly, he had never put too much thought into having a second kid before. Aileen fills up every spare inch of his heart that he had after meeting Ian. And it’s not like he wants to go through the whole “grow a baby inside of you for 9 months and puke your guts out only to have to push it out of your asshole” again. 

But the look on Ian’s face makes him change his mind. Makes him want it just as bad as Ian does. 

Just not right now. Aileen’s too dependent on them- she’s basically just a baby herself, and having another kid now, when they already have a newborn in the house, wouldn’t be the brightest idea. 

But still, he thinks it would be a good idea for them to look into in the future. He doesn't want a huge family- his own family has scared him off of that- but maybe _one_ more kid wouldn't be too bad. 

He’s mulling it over while counting the money he’s made so far. Nearly $145, not too bad for noon. But they won’t make any more if the girls keep walking around in fur coats and Ugg boots. 

“Hey, can you tell these girls to show a little skin, for Christ’s sake? They’re not climbing Everest, they’re climbing dick,” he complains to Svetlana, who’s wiping her mouth. 

“It’s cold,” she says firmly, bouncing Yevgeny. 

“There’s heat,” Mickey argues back. Sure, it’s a little chilly, but he doesn’t pay the heat bill for fucking nothing. 

“Downstairs.”

“And heat rises, it comes up through the floor. Look at this!” he adds, pulling back the curtain of one of the little booths to show one of the girls, wrapped up in fur and rubbing her arms. “Nanook of the fucking North, why don’t you lose the parka ‘less you’re planning on banging eskimos.”

Kev comes up from the Alibi then, calling his name loudly, looking annoyed at something or another. 

“The day my babies are born, you steal cash from the register?”

_Oh. Right._

“Yeah, your register, my cash.” Kev needs to learn that not everything belongs to him- they’re business _partners._ “You’re not the only sap with kids around here.”

He pulls back another curtain to see some Russian giving a handjob to a customer, wearing a fucking jacket. “Why the fuck are you wearing clothes?”

“How is it your cash?” Kev demands. 

“Cause you still owe me from last week,” Mickey says, walking up to him. “Plus now there’s a finder’s fee.”

Kev’s eyebrows shoot up. “A what?”

“Finder’s fee. You’re gonna charge for rent, Imma charge for whores. 20%.”

“Bullshit.”

“No,” Mickey states. “It’s like… uh…” He’s blanking on the name, so he turns to Svetlana. 

“Kelly Girls,” she supplies helpfully. 

“Kelly Girls,” Mickey echoes. “Instead of Kelly, it’s Mickey, instead of girls, it’s whores.”

He brushes past Kev and is about to head down to the Alibi to get a drink, when Kev really fucking pulls a gun on him. The exact gun Mickey gave him 2 weeks ago. 

“Empty your fucking pockets,” he says, making his voice deeper. 

“Are you robbing me with my own fucking gun?” he snaps. 

“Call it what you want, empty your fucking pockets,” Kev says. 

Mickey can’t fucking believe this. He has bills to pay, people to feed. He can’t lose his whole fucking profit. 

“You better do yourself a favor and put a bullet in my chest. ‘Cause if you don’t, you’re in serious shit,” he says. He needs to make him understand. No one fucks with Mickey Milkovich and gets away with it. 

But Kev doesn't back down, pushing the revolver into Mickey’s chest and grunting out, “Pockets. Now.”

Mickey knows he’s not fucking serious, but Kev can be unpredictable and he doens’t really know how to use a gun, and Mickey doesn’t want to leave Ian a single parent, so he pulls the money he got from the register from his pocket and holds it up. 

Kev snatches it from him. 

“Big mistake,” he drawls while Kev pats him down, checking his other pockets for cash. 

“Now excuse me while I go to Walmart and get baby wipes and rash cream,” Kev says, then leaves, tucking Mickey’s gun back into his belt. 

Svetlana’s eyes are boring into his, cold and judging. 

“He’s a fucking dead man,” Mickey decides. 

He stomps over to the Gallagher house, because that’s where Ian is supposed to be, murder on his mind. Fucking Kev. How the fuck is he supposed to get groceries now? He guesses he could make a cash withdrawal from the bank (he and Ian set up a bank account and put nearly $5,000 in savings in it), but he hates going to the bank as much as possible because of all the stupid fuckers who judge him. 

$145. Gone. Now Ian won’t get to buy Aileen the fucking expensive baby oatmeal he claims she loves. Stupid fucking Kev. He’s starting to get sick of him. He’s been on his fucking ass ever since they opened the Rub N’ Tug together, taking more money than he should, complaining about the quality of service, letting fuckers break into the bar and steal all of their money. Mickey’s been trying his fucking hardest to cut Kev some slack, but after robbing him with the revolver that _Mickey_ lent him, he’s finally fucking done. 

When he marches into the Gallagher house, Ian says Aileen’s down for her nap, which is good. Mickey won’t have to worry about her when he shoots Kev. 

“Kev is a friend,” Ian says, grabbing his poptarts out of the toaster when Mickey tells him what happened and what he plans to do.

“Yeah, you know when someone robs me with my own fucking gun? They’re not my friend. I’m kinda funny like that,” Mickey shoots back. Debbie’s watching them from the kitchen table. 

“So what are you gonna do? You’re gonna go to his house, beat the shit out of him?” Ian aruges. 

“No, I’m gonna go to _my_ house, I’m gonna meet up with my brothers, grab some fucking assult rifles, _then_ I’m going to his house.”

Ian nods and smiles at him like he doesn’t believe him, so Mickey steals one of his poptarts and takes a bite out of it. 

“Fiona’s in Wisconsin,” Carl says, coming downstairs. 

“Yeah, Lip sent us the same text too, stupid,” Debbie snaps at him. 

“Why is she in Wisconsin?”

“I don’t know,” Ian sighs. Mickey stalks over to the table and takes a sip of his coffee to wash down the poptart. “Lip said he’d call when he got there.”

Coffee drunk, Mickey starts to move, but Ian steps in front of him. 

“I’m not letting you do this,” he says, trying to stop him. 

Mickey just pushes him out of the way. “Yeah, okay, tough guy.” 

“Oh, Mickey, come the fuck on,” Ian snaps at him as he stomps towards the front door. Fucking Kev. 

Ian protests all the way to the Milkovich house. 

“If you would just talk to him, I’m sure you could work something out.”

“Yeah, he’s gonna work something out, alright,” Mickey grumbles, shoving the front door open. “Work it out with an AR-15 to his fucking head. That’s how I like to negotiate.”

As soon as he gets inside, he strips his jacket off, and is about to make his way over to the gun cabinet, but freezes. 

“The fuck is this?”

Kenyatta’s sitting at the dining room table, Mandy serving him lunch as if nothing’s fucking wrong. As if he didn’t just beat her up because she fucked Lip. 

“You guys hungry?” Mandy asks, her voice extremely soft. When Mickey and Ian don’t respond, she continues, “That a yes?” and stirs whatever the fuck she has in the pot on the stove. 

“The fuck are you doing with him?” Mickey demands. He doesn’t want Mandy to end up like their mom. He wouldn’t be able to fucking stand it. 

“Having lunch.”

“With this piece of shit? You wanted him dead yesterday.”

Mandy scoffs. “Don’t be dramatic.” Kenyatta sits there, nodding his head and drinking Mickey’s beer as if he fucking owns the place. 

“Mandy, he hit you,” Ian says gently. “In the face.”

“No, he didn’t,” Mandy insists, refusing to look at them. 

“Seriously?” Mickey demands. 

“ _No_ , he didn’t,” Mandy repeats. “I just said that because I was angry, and I was shitfaced. I fell.”

“You fell,” Ian sighs. 

Mickey can’t fucking believe this, but he has to shoot Kev first before he can shoot Kenyatta. “Yeah, okay. Alright then, clumsy feet. Enjoy your fucking spaghetti.”

He moves over to the gun cabinet, punching in the code for the weak lock they’ve had for forever. He can hear Ian in the kitchen, saying something to Mandy. He throws open the cabinet and pokes around until he finds the AR Colin bought a few months ago from some shady-ass dealer. He’s just about to grab it by the barrel when he hears things escalate in the kitchen. 

Mandy’s telling Ian to let go of her, and then Mickey hears the telltale sound of her slapping him. 

“What the fuck?” Mickey shouts, turning around just in time to see Kenyatta rise to his full height, like a fucking mountain, and for Ian to grab a fucking knife and shove him up against the wall. 

Kenyatta a whole fucking 6 inches taller than Ian, but he somehow looks so small as he tilts his head back to avoid being stabbed in the neck and breathes harshly, his chest rising and falling rapidly. 

Mickey goes into overdrive. “Hey!” he shotus, rushing to his boyfriend’s side. “Easy, easy.” Ian’s breathing heavily too, and Mickey can see something dark in his eyes, something murderous that even Mickey himself doesn’t have. 

“Ian,” he says calmly, trying to get Ian to chill the fuck out. The room seems frozen for a moment. “Look at me.” Ian does, the flash of anger slowly fading out of him. Mickey rests a hand on the crook of his elbow, hoping the touch would ground him. “We’re cool.” 

Mickey slowly reaches for the knife that’s still pressed against Kenyatta’s throat. He can see Ian's eyes go wide, shocked at what he had just done. 

“Everything’s cool,” Mickey says gently, taking the knife from Ian. Kenyatta shoves Ian off of him, and he stumbles a little bit, panting harshly, his eyes still wide. Scared. 

“We’re leaving,” Mickey tells him, pushing him forward. “Let’s go.” Fuck the guns. Fuck Kev. He stares at Kenyatta as they walk out, making sure he doesn't do anything funny. He tosses the knife on the table, a warning, a threat. _Touch Mandy again, and you will be dead for real._

“Hey!” he shouts to Ian as he slams the door behind him, shrugging on his jacket. Ian stumbles over to the gate outside their house and leans heavily on it, letting out puffs of breath into the freezing air. “What the fuck’s going on with you, huh? One minute you’re like Superman, running around, making pancakes, taking pictures of the goddamn sunrise, and the next thing, you wanna cut somebody’s throat.” Something is definitely going on with Ian. Lip had every right to be concerned. “You smoking meth or something?” he asks, because that’s the only thing his brain can come up with right now, even though he _knows_ Ian isn’t. 

Something else is going on. 

Something that has to do with that dark look he saw in Ian’s eyes. 

Ian’s phone buzzes then, and he wrestles it out of his jacket, completely ignoring Mickey. 

“Yeah, please, check your phone,” Mickey snaps. “I’ll just yell at the fucking wall.”

Whatever text Ian gets makes him shake his head, his eyes going wide. “It’s Frank,” he says. “He’s at the hospital. He’s dying.”

***

They take the L to the hospital, Aileen snuggled up in Mickey’s arms, and Ian’s brain turns quickly. 

Everything had been fine, until Kenyatta had stood up threateningly, and he had felt this sudden surge of _anger_ run through him. Like he wanted nothing more than to beat Kenyatta up until he was a bloody pulp. So he had grabbed the neck and threw him against the wall. 

He gets angry, sure he does, he’s human, but never angry like _that._ Never angry enough to try and _kill_ someone. The look in Mickey’s eyes had frightened him more than himself. 

Because Mickey had been _scared_ of him. It was just a slight second, but it was enough that Ian’s brain had caught it and latched onto it and didn’t let go. 

He doesn't want Aileen to look at him the same way. 

She’s playing with a teether that they had grabbed to keep her company, straddling Mickey’s lap, his arms wrapped around her torso for stability. 

“Papa papa papa,” she babbles, turning to Ian then, reaching a hand towards him. 

“Hi, princess,” he says, smiling instinctively. He smooths a hand over her head, playing with her curls, and she coos, waving the teether in the air. He can feel Mickey's eyes on him, but he refuses to look up. 

He’s scared of what he might see. 

When they get to the hospital, Carl and Debbie are already there, having hitched a ride with Carl’s girlfriend (when did that happen?). Apparently now Frank’s getting married to Sheila before he dies, and she’s already in a wedding dress, bustling about, looking excited. 

Frank’s lying in his hospital bed, eyes closed, barely breathing, his skin yellow. Ian’s not sure what to think. All his life, Frank’s been this cockroach, able to overcome anything, able to adapt and live anywhere. Frank’s always been the sort of villain in their lives- stealing money from Fiona to spend it on booze and drugs, using his kids in his various scams, never attending any of their school events or even showing the slightest bit of interest. 

So it’s strange looking down at his half-dead father, like a great empire has fallen. 

Debbie and Carl press in close next to him, needing the comfort. They’re still so young- not even in high school yet, and they still believe in Frank, at least a little bit, so Ian knows that seeing him like this is more shocking to them than it ever will be for him. 

Mickey stands off to the side, tense, as he hates hospitals, holding tightly to Aileen. Ian almost regrets not letting Frank interact with Aileen more. He’s shown interest, of course, it’s his first grandkid, after all, but Ian had never let him, in fear of whatever shit he might try to pull with her. 

But what if he dies and Aileen never gets to actually meet her grandfather? 

“Hey Frank,” Ian says awkwardly. “How’s it going?” 

Sheila shuffles into the room and lays a bouquet of flowers on top of Frank’s legs. 

“Uh, it’s gonna be a cool wedding,” he continues. “Congratulations.” As more people drift into the hospital room, a few of them some of the regulars at the Alibi, he leans down to Debbie. “Wait, is Frank still married? Did him and Monica get a divorce?” Isn’t it illegal to be married to two people at the same time? 

Debbie shakes him off. “Whatever,” she says, then turns to Frank’s lifeless form. “I just wanted to say that I love you. And that I forgive you for everything. Unless you live. And then- and then I’m still pissed off.”

 _Fair enough,_ Ian thinks, then turns to Carl. 

“I don’t really know any cool last words,” Carl starts. “But I don’t want you to die, and I know that you don’t, either. So if these are our last words, screw it.” 

“I like that,” Debbie says after a pause. 

All of a sudden, from out in the hall, some romantic wedding music starts playing, and Sheila moves into the hospital room, followed by some fat kid who’s holding up her train. At first, Ian has no fucking idea who he is, but then he spies a skinny blonde woman out in the hall, who he assumes must be his half-sister Sammi who showed up out of nowhere, making the kid her son, Chuckie. 

Ian glances back at Mickey, who’s tucked away in the corner, raising an eyebrow at the procession. He turns to Ian, and the look on his face so plainly says, _What the fuck is going on?_ that Ian almost wants to laugh. 

Sheila moves to the side of Frank’s bed and takes a hold of his hand, and Ian shuffles over to stand next to Mickey, knocking their shoulders together gently. 

Kermit, who Ian guesses is officiating their wedding, begins his speech. 

“To succeed every marriage must surmount great obstacles, just… usually not this early on. But, as we now see, it is not the stained glass windows of a church that make a wedding, it is the two loving people who stand… and lie… before us. Sheila,” he continues, glancing up at her. She looks about ready to cry. “Do you promise to love and cherish Frank in sickness, and… well, I guess in just sickness, ‘till death do you part?”

“I do,” Sheila says softly. Mickey coughs to cover up his laugh, and Ian elbows him, but he can’t help but smile too. This is… a little fucking ridiculous. 

“Uh, and we’ll assume Frank feels the same,” Kermit says, gesturing to him. 

“He does,” Sheila whispers. 

“Frank and Sheila, it is my honor to declare you man and wife.” Sheila gasps, a smile breaking out across her face. “You may kiss the groom.”

The whole room starts clapping as Sheila lifts up her veil and bends down, placing a kiss on Frank’s yellow lips. 

It’s like the nurses waited until after they kissed to suddenly sweep Frank away. They suddenly pour into the room, yelling at everyone to move and step back, and Mickey immediately tenses up again, his hands wrapping tighter around Aileen. 

The nurses and doctor take Frank’s IV stand and pull up the bed rails and start wheeling him out of the room. 

“What’s happening?” Sheila demands. 

“Is he dead?” Carl asks. 

“He’s in serious condition, so they moved him up the waiting list,” the doctor explains. 

“What does that mean?” 

“He’s getting a liver!” the doctor calls over his shoulder, then whisks Frank and his bed away around the corner. 

Mickey lets out a huff. 

“Can we head back home now?” he asks Ian. “I need to piss and I’ve seen enough old guys here to last me a lifetime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… we're seeing Ian go more and more off the rails. 😔😔 I tried to do my best to capture both of their feelings during the Kenyatta scene, and I *think* I did an okay job.  
> Look for the next chapter up by Tuesday, and we can freak out about 11x07 together because I know it's gonna be great.


	9. Emily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who gives a shit about him?” Mickey snaps.  
> You fucking do. Ian wants to say. And he gets it, yeah he does. His whole life, Mickey’s had to worry about his dad. But Terry’s in prison now. Mickey’s an adult. There’s nothing Terry can do to him.  
> And the friends of his that Svetlana invited to the party for whatever reason? They don’t hold any power over him.   
> 4.11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: stupid Terry. Brave Mickey.
> 
> Let me rant about 11x07 for a hot sec. Stupid Gallaghers for not paying attention to Liam. Stupid Lip for saying Mickey's not family. I know there's been some debate, but I really enjoyed Ian and Mickey's scenes this episode.  
> I thought they were really funny and it was good that they discussed and made some boundaries about monogamy and agreed to only have sex with others when they were with each other. Couples can occasionally join orgies and not be polyamorous- the actual definition is having romantic feelings for more than one person, and Mickey and Ian sure as hell didn't have feelings for those guys.  
> Frank's scenes made me cry. 😢 As much as I hate him, I'm not sure if I'm ready to see him die.  
> Aaaalso, the amount of new content we're getting for the last few episodes is making my head spin. Mickey head butting Lip as he should. I'm not ready to accept that they're almost done filming.

Lip texts Ian that he’s found Fiona, brought her back safely, and she’s now in prison for violating probation. Real, actual prison, with real, other women, not just a holding cell. 

And Lip has exams and classes and Frank’s still in the hospital, so there’s no adult at home to watch over two young teenagers and a toddler. 

So Ian volunteers himself and Mickey to stay at the Gallagher house and make sure Carl doesn’t blow up anything. 

Mickey’s immediately repulsed by the idea. 

“We’re doing fucking _what_?” he demands, making a face. 

“It’s just for a few days!” Ian protests. “Lip really needs the help while he’s at college! And you’re always complaining about how this house is too small. Think of it as a little vacation.”

“Yeah, in the Gallagher Clown House? Where the fuck is Aileen gonna go?”

“We can take Lip’s room. Put Aileen’s crib in there. C’mon Mickey. Carl, Debbie, and Liam really need our help.”

In the end, Mickey reluctantly agrees, after walking in on Svetlana dyeing her pubes in the bathroom. 

They set up Aileen’s crib in Lip’s former room, which is tiny and cramped. When they place her down to explore, she digs out a crack pipe from underneath the bed and turns to Ian and Mickey with a proud look on her face, holding it up for her to see. 

Mickey snatches it from her faster than a snake. 

Carl, Debbie, and Liam are, for the most part, pretty easy. Debbie and Carl can mostly take care of themselves, the only big thing Ian and Mickey have to worry about is making sure they don’t kill each other. 

Liam’s pretty easy too, and Mickey sets up him and Aileen together in the living room the first evening. Aileen tries to grab Liam’s action figures from him, and he frowns and snatches his favorite one back, which leads her to burst out in tears. 

“Aw, c’mon Aileen,” Ian sighs. “You took it from him first.”

But she’s only 15 months, and doesn’t really understand sharing yet, so they just distract her with another toy and let Liam keep his favorite one, a beat-up wrestler that Lip used to play with when he was his age. 

Mickey boils pasta while Ian bakes frozen garlic bread, and dinner is nearly silent except for Aileen’s babbling and the occasional response Ian or Mickey say to her. Tonight, it’s an endless mantra of “moo” with a few “fuck”s thrown in there, and even one or two “no”s. 

“I hope Fiona’s okay,” Debbie says once, breaking the silence. 

Debbie and Carl see themselves off to bed, and Ian tucks Liam into his bed. He’s doing pretty okay after the whole cocaine thing, a little quiet, but Liam’s always been quiet. Ian strokes a hand over his curly hair and tucks the blankets up to his chin, then pats Carl’s ankle that’s hanging off the edge of the bed on his way out. 

Mickey reads to Aileen that night, one of Liam’s books, something about a bunny. It looks like it’s been chewed on. 

“These sheets smell like smoke,” Mickey grunts out after they’ve settled her down in her crib and are crawling into bed themselves.

“Yeah, Lip probably smokes in bed,” Ian responds, and Mickey’s face screws up. 

Aileen wakes them up that night, babbling their names until Ian climbs out of bed, half-asleep, and roots around in the bag they packed for her until he finds her favorite purple pacifier. She’s been doing that occasionally. Ian believes it’s a combination of the natural toddler sleep regression, and the fact that she still sleeps in the same room as them. 

The second morning of he and Mickey staying at the Gallagher house, Ian wakes up early to go on a run. The whole Fiona-in-prison situation is making him feel rather jumpy and tense. Running is a nice way to get his energy out, _and_ it keeps him slim for the club. 

When he gets back, he heads over to Fiona’s room because the overhang of the door frame is the biggest in the house, and does some pull-ups. He’s on 17 when Carl wanders over, and gives him a sharp nod. 

“Is Mickey your boyfriend?” he asks, and Ian falters. 

“Of course,” he answers. How could Carl ever think they’re not? 

“Doesn’t he have a wife?”

Ian sighs. “Legally, he’s married to Svetlana, yes, but they don’t like each other. It’s called a marriage of convenience. His family’s a nightmare.”

Carl punches him lightly in the stomach. “Think I got a girlfriend.”

Ian has to smile at that. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, her family’s a nightmare too,” Carl says. 

“Whose isn’t?”

“What do you love about Mickey?”

Ian knows Carl’s just asking the question to figure out his own feelings about the girl he’s been seeing, but it still makes him pause and drop down from his pull-ups. 

What does he love about Mickey? 

Well, a lot. He loves how he is with their daughter, for one. He loves how he doesn’t take anyone’s shit. He loves his ass, his lips. 

“I like how he smells,” Ian’s brain lands on. Apparently, that’s enough for Carl, because he nods and smiles a little bit. 

Just then, Mickey throws the door open across the hall and stomps out, heading towards the bathroom to take his daily morning piss. 

“Whatcha asking stupid fucking questions for?” he snaps.

“You’re nicer when you’re asleep,” Carl throws back at him. “Frank survived his liver transplant, in case you were wondering,” he adds to Ian, who gives up on working out right now and gravitates towards Mickey, stretching his shoulders out. 

“Nope,” he responds to Carl. “Wasn’t.”

“I gotta go to the church for the christening today,” Mickey says over his shoulder to Ian when he leans up against the door frame. Ah, right. Svetlana called Mickey last night and demanded he attend Yevgeny’s christening at the local Roman Catholic church on 34th. Why, Ian has no idea. 

“I thought you didn’t care,” he says. 

“I don’t,” Mickey responds, finishing emptying his bladder and tucking himself back into his pants. 

“Why are you going then?” Ian presses as Mickey goes to wash his hands. 

“He’s my brother, man,” Mickey grumbles. 

Ian shrugs. Well, guess he’s going, too. He’ll need to keep Mickey sane. 

“Alright, I’ll get dressed,” he says, heading back towards Lip’s room and tugging his tank top over his head. 

“No, no, look, it’s fine,” Mickey calls to him. “I’ll head over by myself. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

A strand of Mickey’s hair is hanging in front of his eyes, and his lips are parted slightly, and he looks so fucking _good_ that Ian can’t help the swirl of arousal that coils lazily in his belly.

So he grabs the front of Mickey’s shirt and pushes him up against the door to the bathroom, saying, “What, you don’t want me to go?”

Mickey just cocks his head and pushes Ian right back, into the opposite wall where a chunk of the plaster is missing. 

“Probably best if you don’t, tough guy,” Mickey replies, a smile playing on his lips. 

“Yeah, for you, maybe.” Ian holds his head forward, staring at Mickey’s lips, but his boyfriend ignores it, and steps back. 

“Why you busting my balls, man?” Mickey sighs and heads back into their room. 

Aileen’s in her crib, already changed for the day, playing with one of Liam’s toy trains. She babbles when she sees Ian and Mickey make their way into the room, and Ian gently brushes her hair away from her face before turning back to Mickey, who’s picking up a stray pair of pants on the floor. 

He knows why Mickey doesn't want him to go. He likes to associate _Ian_ and _Svetlana_ as two different parts of him- his boyfriend and his fake wife, and likes to keep Ian in this little tiny box that doesn’t come into contact with Svetlana and get tainted. 

Ian’s getting really fucking tired of it. Mickey’s almost scared of Svetlana, scared of what she could do. He needs to know that she doesn’t have any sort of fucking power over them- just words and threats. When she forced Mickey to marry her, she had claimed that some guy was snooping around for Mickey. Ian highly doubts it. 

Svetlana got what she wanted- a free pass to stay in America by marriage. Now Ian gets to have what he wants- to be a real fucking family with Mickey and Aileen, and to not have Mickey worrying about his dad, who’s in fucking prison, anymore. 

So he grabs Mickey roughly by his hips and spins him around so he’s facing him. 

“Just wondering, if we’re a couple or not,” Ian says. 

Mickey raises an eyebrow at him, then all of a sudden, Ian finds himself laying on his back on the bed, his wrists pinned above his head, Mickey straddling his legs. Ian bites down on the instinct to thrust up at Mickey and instead lets out a long sigh. 

“Of course we are,” Mickey says, his eyes impossibly soft as he stares down at Ian. But Ian isn’t done yet. 

“A couple that hides?”

“Ey, only from my dad, and it’s working out so far, so good,” Mickey says, shaking his head. 

“Getting kinda sick of it,” Ian argues. 

“Jesus Christ, man,” Mickey sighs, getting up and releasing Ian. “Fine, come, whatever. But you’re gonna have to take Aileen. And Svetlana’s throwing some kind of goddamn party afterwards at the Alibi that she also wants me there for. So, get ready to be bored out of your fucking mind.”

As Mickey finishes changing, Ian lifts Aileen out of her crib. He sets her on the bed and reaches for the baby brush they brought, gently smoothing out her bed head and gathering it into two sections. He grabs some elastics they also brought over and ties her hair off into two little pigtails that Mandy showed him how to do. 

When he’s finished, Aileen tries to grab the ends of her hair and bring them into her mouth, frowning when her hair is too short. 

Ian chuckles and slips her winter jacket on, then straightens up and sets her on his hip. 

“You ready?” he asks Mickey, who’s smoothing down a few free strands of hair with gel. 

“Sure,” Mickey responds, adjusting the collar of his button-down. 

“You look good,” Ian tries. 

Mickey just huffs out at him, but gently touches Aileen’s back as he brushes past them. Ian follows him down into the kitchen, where Debbie and Carl are arguing, as usual. 

“Can you guys look after yourselves fine?” Ian asks them, and they nod. It’s a Saturday, so they don’t have school. After making sure they’re all set with Liam, he and Mickey set out for the church.

It’s still so fucking cold out, and Ian can’t wait until April, when things _finally_ start to warm up. It takes them only a little bit to walk to the church, and Mickey heads in first, marching up to the apse, where Svetlana and the priest are waiting in front of a large pedestal filled with water. 

Ian takes a seat towards the back with Aileen, setting her on his knee. The stained glass all around casts the cathedral into a purple-blue glow, making it feel nearly ethereal. He tilts his head back and holds Aileen up a little higher, pointing up to the giant stained glass window that sits at the front of the building, slightly behind them. She reaches her hands up, cooing softly, as if she’s trying to grab the light the windows casts. 

Ian can hear Svetlana snapping at Mickey for being late, and his stomach turns unpleasantly. This whole situation is fucked up. Svetlana’s the mother of Mickey’s half-brother, yet they’re married. Isn’t that incest? Well, it’s not like they’re actually fucking. 

Ian can feel a gaze on him, and he lifts his head from watching Aileen leaning forward and grabbing onto the backs of the pews, to stare into Svetlana’s eyes. He glares back at her. 

She might be an illegal Russian immigrant who’s just trying to survive like everyone else, but she doesn’t have to be such a bitch. 

The whole ceremony takes less than 2 minutes. Svetlana hands Yevgeny off to the priest, who says a few words and then dunks the baby in the water, making him cry sharply, then hands him back to his mother. Svetlana wraps him up in expensive-looking blankets and gently shushes him, bouncing him. 

Mickey stands there the whole time, his arms crossed, and as soon as it’s finished, he stalks back over to Ian and Aileen. 

“That wasn’t so bad,” Ian says, trying to lighten the look on his face. 

“Whatever,” Mickey grunts out. 

“Dada!” Aileen chirps up then, showing Mickey the scribbles she’s made on the connection cards Ian snagged for her from the pews to keep her entertained. 

“Very nice, sweetheart,” Mickey says, his face going soft for the first time as he runs a hand over her head. 

Svetlana drags them over to the Alibi afterwards with a bunch of the other Russians and some of their regulars. Ian takes a seat at the bar and sets Aileen on his lap while Mickey grabs plates. V is nowhere to be seen, which Ian is a little down over, because he really wanted to talk to her about her new twins. 

Ian’s seen pictures, and apparently their names are Amy and Gemma. They look really fucking cute and Ian had been hoping he’d be able to hold them and introduce them to Aileen, but he guesses V is home resting. 

He spies Kev make his way over to Mickey and they talk and don’t look like they want to kill each other, which Ian supposes is good. Looks like Mickey’s let go the whole Kev-robbing-him thing. 

“Pa!” Aileen babbles then, as she’s trying and failing to reach a bowl of peanuts someone left on the bar. 

Ian moves it out of her reach, but she crosses her arms and pouts and declares, “No!” Ian has to laugh at that. She’s starting to get Mickey’s stubbornness, and he absolutely fucking loves it. It’s almost fitting that she should look so much like Ian yet act so much like Mickey. 

Just then, the front door to the Alibi bangs open and a couple men walk in, loud and rowdy, all laughing with each other. Ian realizes he’s seen a few of them around the neighborhood before. They all look either drunk or high, stumbling over each other, smoking cigarettes. 

Ian hugs Aileen a little tighter to his body as Svetlana saunters over to them, her arms free of Yevgeny. She stops and says something to the men, and Ian can tell that she puffs her chest out, very nearly shoving her breasts in their faces. 

The one guy in front reaches out and touches her arm and says something in her ear, and she smirks. 

It’s then when Ian realizes he doesn’t see Mickey. He used to be over by the food at the other end of the bar, but now he’s not there. 

Ian casts a glance at the men, who are giving him a bad feeling, but they’re too engrossed with Svetlana, so he stands up and shifts Aileen to the other side of his body, blocking the men’s view of her, as he makes his way over to Kev. 

“Hey, where’s Mickey?” he asks him. 

“Huh? Oh, bathroom,” Kev responds, gesturing with his elbow as he’s holding a scoop of corned beef in one hand and his plate in the other. 

“Thanks,” Ian replies, moving quickly into the men’s bathroom, letting the door swing shut after him. Sure enough, Mickey’s leaning over the sink, staring at himself in the mirror. Ian studies him for a moment. He looks… defeated. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks, and Mickey’s head jerks up, startled. 

“Fuck!” Aileen repeats. Ian shifts her up higher on his hip. 

“Those men,” Mickey says. “They’re friends of Terry’s.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , if they see me, they’ll kill me. Terry thinks I’ve fucked off a long time ago thanks to Iggy, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Ian has to let out a laugh at that. “Yeah, for how long? Until Aileen’s in fucking high school? I’m sick of living a lie, aren’t you?”

Mickey frowns. “I’m not lying to you.”

Ian sighs. “Your dad,” he says simply. Yeah, they got out of a sticky situation a few months ago when Terry broke out of jail, but he’s locked up now, for good, with extra eyes on him. 

“Who gives a shit about him?” Mickey snaps.

 _You fucking do._ Ian wants to say. And he gets it, yeah he does. His whole life, Mickey’s had to worry about his dad. But Terry’s in prison now. Mickey’s an adult. There’s nothing Terry can do to him. And the friends of his that Svetlana invited to the party for whatever reason? They don’t hold any power over him. 

“You’re not free,” Ian says then, taking a step towards Mickey. He won’t be free of his father unless he makes himself. Unless he mans up to Terry. Gets his shit sorted. 

“Ian, what you and I have, makes me free,” Mickey says then, gesturing between the two of them, to Aileen. 

Ian just shakes his head. Doesn’t he fucking get it? A relationship, a _family,_ isn’t something you can keep hidden. Sure, Mickey might be out to the Gallaghers, to the Balls, to everyone in their immediate neighborhood, but he’s sure as hell not out to his father. 

“Look, you don’t understand at all,” Mickey says, shaking his head. 

Ian wants to scoff. “Oh, I do understand,” he says instead. “I understand better than anyone that you’re afraid of your father, you’re afraid of your wife. You’re afraid to be who you are.” He finishes his statement with a poke to Mickey’s chest. Aileen seems to catch on that they’re having a serious conversation right now, and keeps quiet. 

“I’m not afraid of anyone,” Mickey bites back. 

“Yes, you are,” Ian insists. “You’re hiding in a fucking bathroom because you’re scared some men are going to run to daddy and say they say you in a bar. Maybe if you weren’t so fucking selfish, you could see that this is bigger than you. It’s about me. It’s about Aileen. Because we’re a family, Mick. Anything that’s happening with one of us, is happening to all of us.”

It’s then when the bathroom door bangs open again, and this time, Svetlana stalks into the room, glaring down at them. 

“We go,” she declares to Mickey. “Visit Terry.”

Mickey’s eyebrows shoot up. “What the fuck are you on?”

Svetlana gestures behind her. “Friends of Terry says he wants to meet his son. I go, you come with.”

“Why,” Mickey demands. 

Svetlana crosses her arms, cocking her hip out. “I’ve been thinking. Terry will be in prison for long time. House is still under his name, but is no use to him. You should have it,” she says, nodding to Mickey. “I have paperwork. All we need is for Terry and you to sign.”

Mickey glances at Ian, swallowing hard. Ian seems frozen. That is _not_ what he expected Svetlana to say. 

It’s actually… kind of a good idea. There’s no reason that Terry should have the house- he won’t be around for a while, and it will protect them for a few years down the road, when he _does_ get out, and if they happen to still be living at the Milkovich house, from getting kicked out on the streets. 

“How the fuck are we going to get him to sign the house off?” Ian asks. 

“I say friends will cut ties if he does not,” Svetlana says. “I give them favors in exchange for favors.”

Ian knows exactly what _favors_ she means, and he suddenly feels bad. So Svetlana dragging them out today was her planning on letting them get the house? 

“Why can’t you do it yourself?” Mickey asks her. 

“I am not American citizen,” she responds. “You are. Prison guards will be nicer. We leave in 15 minute,” she adds, then shoots a glance at Ian. “Howdy Doody come too.”

She leaves, the bathroom door swinging shut behind her, and Aileen pipes up, babbling something incoherent as she grabs onto Ian’s ear with one hand and fists his flannel shirt with the other. He can see Mickey visibly relaxing, realizing that the strange men aren't such a threat as he thought. Ian wants to say _I told you so,_ but he knows that's not what Mickey needs right now, so he instead reaches out and gently touches his boyfriend's arm, letting him know that he's there for him. 

“Well,” Mickey says. “I guess I’m going to own a fucking house.”

***

They stop by the Gallagher house to drop Aileen off. Debbie’s home, as it’s a Saturday, and Mickey plops her down in her lap, but Aileen doesn’t want to let go, hanging onto Mickey’s neck as he tries to straighten up. 

“You need to let go, sweetheart,” he says to her, trying to pry her hands apart. “I’ll be back very soon.” She whines, as if sensing what Mickey’s about to do, and it takes Ian distracting her with her favorite stuffed bunny for her to finally let go, allowing them to leave. 

Mickey has no idea what he’s fucking doing. 

This is a stupid idea, he thinks, but it _would_ be good to officially own the house. He already pays all of the fucking bills. It does things to him, knowing that he could get a house that would be _his,_ his and Ian's and Aileen's, a house where he can guarantee his daughter food and comfort and warmth and stability, something that his own father couldn't give to him. He even hopes that maybe, someday, the house could become less _the Milkovich house_ and more _Ian and Mickey's house._

Ian’s words roll around in his head. Visiting his dad in jail right now will mean that his dad will now know that he hasn’t run away like Iggy said he did. It will make them vulnerable to Terry’s buddies. Mickey’s heart pounds just thinking about what his father is capable of doing to Ian and Aileen, but he wants to be free. 

Goddamit, does he want to be free. 

He doesn’t want to be a coward anymore. 

In the perfect world, his dad and all of his gang friends would have died a long fucking time ago. Mandy wouldn’t be getting beat up by her boyfriend. They would have all the fucking money in the world. 

But this isn’t a perfect world, and you have to do what’s best to make it a slightly better place for yourself. 

So Mickey climbs in the L with Ian and Svetlana and Yevgeny, to go visit his father in state prison. 

Apparently, Svetlana’s already made some arrangements with the guards and has already gotten the paperwork for Terry to sign the house over to Mickey. Mickey has a sort of new respect for her. She may be a bitch, sure, and she may have given birth to just another one of Terry’s devil spawn, but she’s smart and calculating and knows how to play people really fucking well. 

Some guard who Svetlana flips her hair at leads them to a private meeting room. Svetlana goes in first, taking Yevgeny with her, a sort of calm before the storm that’s sure to come when Ian and Mickey enter the room. She had told them that she was going to convince Terry to sign the papers over to her, and that all Mickey had to do was give his signature later and pay Terry $1. 

Mickey has to pause and reach out before they enter, searching out Ian. He’s boyfriend’s there as if he _knows_ exactly what Mickey wants, as if they have some sort of fucking psychic connection, gripping his hand subtly. The simple touch grounds and he takes a breath, calming his racing heart. 

Is he seriously going to fucking do this? 

Yes he is. 

Fuck Terry. 

Ian’s right- he can’t have power over him any longer. 

Mickey can hear Terry saying something to Svetlana inside, something about Yevgeny. He doesn’t sound angry, more… happy about his son. It makes Mickey want to punch him in his fat fucking face. 

Terry only cares about the fact that he _has_ sons, he doesn’t actually give two shits about them later in life. He only cares about the satisfaction that he’s able to produce more fucking men. 

After a little bit, Mickey hears the conversation inside the room die down, and Ian glances over at him. He catches his gaze and nods slowly. It’s time. 

Mickey’s the one who reaches for the door handle, the one who turns it, pushing the door open every so slowly, the one who steps in the room first. 

And there he is. 

His father. 

The same one who’s tutored him for fucking _years._

The one who called him weak, called him a faggot, called him a pussy boy. The one who beat him up because he needed something to punch and raped his sister because he was too drunk. The one who forced him to deal drugs, pressured him to quit high school, made him feel like he was unworthy of fucking _anything._

He’s wearing an orange jumpsuit and looks so much older than the last time Mickey saw him, his hair thinning out, his face wrinkling further. Seeing him again makes Mickey’s legs shake and his heart speed up once again. He hasn’t seen his father for nearly a year and a half, since he nearly killed Aileen inside of Mickey. 

It makes his blood boil and makes him grip Ian’s hand tighter. 

As soon as Terry sees him, a million emotions cross over his face. First surprise, then confusion, then anger, then rage. Mickey sees his eyes flick between Mickey, then Ian, then their conjoined hands. 

“What the fuck is this?!” Terry shouts, staring at Svetlana, who’s standing off to the corner now, holding Yevgeny in her hands, lightly bouncing him. 

A moment passes and no one speaks. Mickey just stands there, hand-in-hand with Ian. His boyfriend is a comforting presence next to him, and when Ian squeezes his hand, Mickey thinks, _I got this._ God, he can't wait to see the shock on his old man's face. 

“Hi, Pops,” Mickey says, nodding at him. “So, turns out I _didn’t_ run away. And I’m still fucking gay. Big ol’ ‘mo.”

Fucking hell. 

It feels so fucking _good_ to get that off his chest. He never knew how good saying he’s gay could feel. 

_Holy shit._

Did he just come out to his dad? 

Apparently, because it’s then when Terry jumps up, lunging across the room, and why isn’t he cuffed to the fucking table, and grabs Mickey by his collar. 

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Terry roars in his face. “You son of a bitch!” 

He draws back a fist, but Mickey’s quicker, dropping Ian’s hand to land a punch squarely in his face. Terry nearly bends over backwards from the force of his hit, but recovers quickly, and lands a good one on Mickey’s nose. 

Pain explodes that sends him rearing back, but he blinks through it and tries to lunge for his dad again, but Terry is ready. He grabs Mickey by his shoulders and throws him on the ground, pain exploding from the back of his skull as it makes contact with the concrete floor. 

Mickey’s distantly aware of Yevgeny crying and Terry still yelling as he climbs on top of him, lodging a knee up against his chest and landing one, two, three more punches on his face. 

He can feel a sort of wetness near his mouth, and then all of a sudden, Terry’s being shoved off of him and a literal weight is lifted from his chest and he can breathe again. He rolls over onto his shoulder, reaching up to gingerly touch his face. His fingers come away red. 

He’s vaguely aware of the door swinging open right in front of him and more people rushing into the room and shouts and a loud yell that sounds like Ian, and suddenly there are hands grabbing at him, forcing him to stand up. 

Some guards are wrestling Terry into handcuffs, pressing him up against the wall, and they shove Mickey right up next to him, trapping his hands behind his back. 

Mickey can’t see Ian and he has no idea where Svetlana is, and now Terry’s yelling at him, trying to kick from the guards’ grasps. 

“Fucking faggot!” he yells. “You’re not getting my house! You pole-smoking queer!”

“Fuck you, don’t worry about it!” Mickey shouts back, anger swirling deep in his belly. His mouth tastes like iron. “You’ll be in the can for forever, and Ian and I’ve already been staying there. Guess what we’ve been doing, Daddy?” Maybe it’s the adrenaline from the punches he’s packed that’s making him go off, or the elation of finally saying the words _I’m gay_ to his dad after so long, or maybe it’s the knowledge that’s Terry’s in jail and there’s _nothing he can do about it_ that makes Mickey literally hump the wall, not helping the cop at all who’s trying to get him into handcuffs. 

“We’ve been fucking!” he shouts, and does not miss the absolute _horror_ on Terry’s face. “And I take it!” he adds, because if he’s saying this, he’s going all fucking in. “He gives it to me good and hard, and I fucking like it. He put a goddamn baby in me once, and I’d let him do it again!” 

“Let me go!” Terry growls, still trying to wrestle himself out of the guards’ holds. They finally manage to slide the handcuffs on him, and start leading him towards the door, but he’s not done yet. He aims a few kicks at Micey, but misses, and throws in a few “Fuck you!”s. 

“I suck his dick!” Mickey continues. “I fucking love it!” He twists around in the guard’s hold, lashing his leg out to kick back at Terry. 

The guards drag Terry out of the room and down the hall, and Mickey can hear him shouting about cutting Mickey’s balls off as they escote him back to his cell. 

“And as for you,” the guard who had been holding Mickey against the wall says. “You’re free to go.” Suddenly, Mickey’s hands are free, and he jerks his head back at the guard. Is he fucking serious? 

“What?” he pants out. His face feels wet and _fuck_ does his nose hurt. 

“If I arrest you, it’s gonna be a lot of paperwork,” the guard sighs. He sounds drop-dead tired. “Keep me in the office all night. I’d rather get home to my husband Carlos.” He turns to Svetlana then, who’s cradling Yevgeny against her body, who’s no longer crying. “I think we’re good here,” he says, then nods at Ian, and leaves. 

Ian looks terrible. 

Mickey had no idea that he and Terry had gotten into _that_ big of a scrap, but he’s got a nasty cut on his hairline that’s dripping blood down his face, and a bruise above his eyebrow. 

“Speaking of paperwork,” Svetlana says then, nudging the piece of paper that had been left on the table in the middle of the room. “Terry signed. You sign, then we take it to city office, and house is ours.”

Mickey nods absentmindedly. Fuck, his face hurts so fucking much. The excitement of _coming the fuck out_ has worn off by now, and now he’s just in pain. Ian moves over to him, gently knocking their shoulders together, waiting for Mickey to make the first move. 

Fuck, does Mickey love him. 

Ian’s been nothing but supportive since the first time they fucked. Staying by Mickey’s side, raising Aileen with him, sure, he’s pushed him a little bit, but it turned out to be for the better, because this feeling right here? This is freeing. Ian’s such a fucking good boyfriend, a good _partner._

Svetlana goes out into the hall to talk to the guards, leaving them alone, and Ian wraps an arm around Mickey, holding him close. 

Mickey’s mouth is throbbing in pain, so he raises his hand and gently presses a finger against his tooth, his gums aching. “I think I broke half a fucking tooth,” he groans. 

“Yeah, my ribs don’t feel so good,” Ian responds. Mickey’s sad he missed Ian giving Terry the best beat down of his life. He bet he looked fucking hot. “So, you really came out, huh?” he says after a beat. 

“Doesn’t mean I’m gonna wear a fucking dress or anything,” Mickey snaps back. 

“Nobody fucking asked you to.” Ian studies him, his gaze sweeping up and down, then he smirks. “Though you do have really nice legs.”

Mickey can’t help but smile at that. Fucking Gallagher. “You’re a fucking dick,” he laughs out and Ian starts to chuckle, throwing his head back, then curling in on himself, an arm wrapping around his torso as no doubt the movement caused him pain. 

“Yeah, there,” Mickey scoffs. “That’s what you get.”

Ian pauses then, staring down at Mickey, a half smile spreading across his face. A bone-deep exhaustion spreads through Mickey’s body, the adrenaline and excitement having worn off, and now all he wants to do is go home to a house that is now theirs, take a shower, snuggle up with Aileen, and pass the fuck out. 

Ian brings his hand up and gently cups Mickey’s head, pulling it in to press a kiss against his hair, then gently rubs his back. 

“You wanna head home?” he asks softly, and now that word has a whole nother meaning. It's no longer the _Milkovich house,_ where Terry ruled with an iron fist, terrorizing the neighborhood and his own children, but now it's _Mickey's house_ , where he and his boyfriend and daughter and sister can all live together. 

“Fuck yeah,” Mickey responds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mickey came out to his dad!!!  
> That's a huge moment for himself, and he knows now that he doesn't have to be scared or worried about his father ever, ever again. I feel like the circumstances were a little bit awkwardly written, but just go with me here, lol.  
> Also he owns the house now! Even though it's just a small step, it's a big deal for him. He feels even more free of his father now. 
> 
> Look for the final chapter coming on Friday, and don't forget to leave comments and kudos. :)  
> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/blazingskies29)!


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